Coronavirus India Updates: Total Cases Rise To 8,447; Death Toll At 273

The new coronavirus pandemic has now infected more than 8,000 people in India even as the nation went into the world’s biggest lockdown to combat spreading of the highly contagious pathogen.

India added 918 fresh cases of Covid-19 in the last 24 hours, taking the total tally to 8,447 in Asia’s third-largest economy, according to the health ministry’s update as of 5 p.m. on April 12. This includes 273 deaths and 765 people who have recovered.

Several chief ministers recommended a two-week extension of the lockdown at their meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday. While the central government’s statement says nothing about extending the nationwide shutdown that’s set to end next week on April 14, five states—Odisha, Punjab, Maharashtra, West Bengal and Telangana—extended it in their regions, either across the state or in a graded fashion.

Globally, coronavirus cases exceeded 1.77 million, while deaths top 108,000. The U.S. became the world’s epicenter for the novel virus as deaths passed Italy. The pace of deaths slowed in Spain, France and Germany, though Italy reported the most new cases in a week. China reported 99 new cases from Saturday, 97 of which were imported.

Track latest news updates and developments on how the coronavirus situation is evolving in India here:

“The number of cases are increasing and I’m also worried about it,” said Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal. “But confident that the number of cases will be contained.”

• Wherever we are finding cases in Delhi, we are declaring them as containment zones, and have launched “operation shield”.
• 34-35 areas are now part of containment zones. More such places are being identified and containment is being done at large scale.
• We will provide doorstep services to all containment zones.
• Containment zones are red zones and massive sanitisation drive is being carried out. All the high-risk areas are orange zones and there will be sanitisation drive as well.
• We are learning and adapting from experiences of other countries as well.

Maharshtra reported 134 new coronavirus cases on April 12, taking the total tally in the state rise to 1,895.

Of the 134 fresh cases...

• Mumbai reported 113 cases
• Raigad, Amravati, Bhiwandi, Pimpri-Chinchwad one case each
• Pune four cases
• Mira Bhayandar seven cases
• Navi Mumbai, Thane and Vasai Virar two cases each.

Source: ANI tweeted citing State Health Department

• Active cases: 7,409
• Cured/discharged/migrated: 765
• Deaths: 273

Source: Health Ministry (As of April 12, 5 p.m.)

As far as lockdown is concerned, social distancing is key, according to Lav Agarwal. Even if there is no lockdown tomorrow, everyone needs to focus on social distancing as part of behavioural change.

“Not everything is known about this particular virus and different kind of facts keep coming to us on a continuous basis,” Agarwal said. “Some resurgence have been noticed in China, Japan and Korea in coronavirus cases. This is also a cause of worry to us as well. We need to ensure our containment and social distancing measures are there.”

The finance ministry has extended the deadline for mandatory minimum deposit in public provided fund and Sukanya Samriddhi account for FY20 by three months up to June, according to PIB’s Dhatwalia.

India approved export of hydroxychloroquine tablets to 13 countries, said KS Dhatwalia, director-general of Press Information Bureau.

According to ICMR’s Murhekar, there are more than 40 candidates vaccines which are under development, none have been approved yet (globally). “India is also trying for vaccine development but as of now we don’t have any candidate available.”

The effort is to further increase the testing capacity in the country, said Lav Agarwal, joint secretary at the health ministry. “As part of that, we are also increasing testing facilities in private and government medical colleges.”

• Since yesterday, 909 additional Covid-19 cases have come up.
• 273 deaths reported so far and 34 deaths have been reported since yesterday.
• 716 positive cases have recovered so far.

“On March 29, we had 979 cases and today we have 8,356 cases, but of these only 20 percent are of moderate symptoms or the ones that needed ICU support.”

There is no need to panic, government is planning the things by being over prepared, Agarwal said. “As of April 9, if we needed 1,100 beds with oxygen support, we had 85,000 such beds. As of today, if we need 1,671 beds, we have 105,000 for Covid management in 601 hospitals.”

There are a total 219 testing facilities in the country—150 are in the government sector and 68 in private, according to Manoj Murhekar, director ICMR-NIE Chennai.

• Till 2:30 p.m. on April 12, a total of 186,906 samples were tested, of which 7,953 were positive.
• In the last five days, average number of samples tested are 15,747 and 584 tested positive.

State governments are providing door-to-door services of home essentials in hotspot areas, according to Punya Salila Srivastava, joint secretary, MHA. There are certain areas where army units have come forward for awareness and food distribution.

The home ministry has reiterated again today to ensure seamless transport of all kinds of goods, Srivastava said.

Ahead of extending restrictions on the mobility of goods and persons, the government plans to set up a chain of 20 lakh retail shops called “Suraksha Stores” across India that will provide daily essentials to citizens.

The initiative will convert the neighbourhood kirana stores into sanitised retail outlets selling daily essentials while adhering to safety norms such as social distancing and sanitisation to control the spread of the novel coronavirus, PTI reported citing people with direct knowledge of the development.

The government will rope in private firms to implement this plan, which seeks to ensure that proper protocol is followed in the entire supply chain, right from manufacturing units to retail outlets, to combat Covid-19. Each fast-moving consumer goods company might be given one or two states to execute this plan in an effective manner and enable every store to fight coronavirus.

Source: PTI

Dharavi, Mumbai’s biggest slum, recorded 15 new coronavirus cases, taking the total tally to 43, as the novel virus spreads rapidly in an environment where people live close together.

• Out of the 15 cases, nine are quarantined in Rajiv Gandhi Sports Complex.
• All these nine cases are high-risk contacts of patients who had tested positive for the virus earlier.
• Four new cases reported from Shastri Nagar slum and two from Janta Society.
• The total 43 cases in Dharavi includes four deaths.

Source: BMC

• Active cases: 7,367
• Cured/discharged/migrated: 716
• Deaths: 273

Source: Health Ministry (As of April 12, 8 a.m.)

• PM Modi held a meeting with state chief ministers where most of them asked for a two-week extension on the lockdown.
• After Odisha and Punjab, Maharashtra has also extended its lockdown till April 30.
• Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal lauded the Prime Minister on his decision to extend the lockdown. However, no official communication has been made on an extension.

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