Coronavirus in India: Centre reiterates that community transmissions of Covid-19 have not yet begun

The government today stated that community transmission of Covid-19 have not yet started in the country and that there was no need to panic. The Centre officials made the statement while pointing out results of all samples tested on Thursday which included an insignificant 0.2 per cent positive results for Sars-CoV-2.

“Yesterday, we conducted 16002 tests. Only 0.2% cases tested positive. On the basis of the samples collected, the infection rate is not high,” said Lav Agrawal, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Health.

Government’s certainty that the deadly virus hadn’t advanced to the community transmissions phase-considered dangerous as positive cases start rising rampantly making tracing of the contacts almost impossible- comes inside an hour of the Punjab CM Amarinder Singh showing concerns to the opposite.

Amarinder Singh has expressed fear that there could be cases of community transmission in his state that has registered around 113 positive cases thus far including 8 deaths according to the data issued by the health ministry. Punjab chief Minister stated that 27 positive cases in the state had been reported through secondary sources in order to corroborate his claim.

Singh also added that continuance of the nationwide lockdown and curfew was the only way to curb the spread of coronavirus. His statement on preventative steps was restated by the health ministry official in the national capital.

“Today, the challenge is not local or community transmission, but if we are taking all the precautionary and containment measures,” Agrawal said.

India has so far recorded a total of 6412 positive cases including 199 deaths, says the data available on the health ministry’s coronavirus dashboard. The ministry official further stated that positive cases in the last 24 hours had mounted by 678 including 33 deaths.

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