Coronavirus in India: Total cases reach 3,374, death toll at 79

A health ministry official on Sunday disclosed that the total number of infections in the country had reached 3374 with 79 incidents of death. The official also stated that India’s course of action in the battle against Covid-19 has been dynamic and is defined by the attitude to hunt the virus instead of letting it hunt us.

The government official also affirmed that 274 districts across India had reported at least one positive case of Covid-19.

“Total 3374 confirmed Covid-19 cases have been reported till now, including an additional 472 new cases that have been reported since yesterday. Total 79 deaths reported including 11 additional deaths since yesterday. 267 persons have also recovered from Covid-19,” said Lav Aggarwal, Joint Secy, Health Ministry.

Luv Agarwal further added that the number of cases in the country was increasing twofold every 4.1 days.

“The doubling rate for the cases of Covid-19 cases in the country is presently 4.1 days and this would have been 7.4 days had the Tablighi jamaat cases not surfaced,” Agarwal added.

Agarwal was making reference to a group of religious gongregants in New Delhi’s Nizamuddin that have spread the infection in at least 17 states and are said to be the source of one-third of all positive cases in India.

The official stated that the Cabinet secretary convened a review meeting with the district magistrates of all districts in the country which was also attended by the chief secretaries of all states where officials gave out different successful containment plans brought to action in their respective territories. Luv stated that successful plans could be outlined in two points proactive and ruthless containment over preparedness.

“Proactive and ruthless containment implementation at field level and secondly preparedness to the extent of over preparedness to deal with all situations,” Agarwal said.

He stated that describing buffer and containment zone and the necessary ring fencing of the disease was important to the containment plan and added that the government’s approach has been proactive since the beginning.

“Instead of the virus chasing us, we chase the virus, our approach has been proactive since the very beginning,” Agarwal added.

On the issue of dearth of protective equipment, Aggarwal stated the shortage was being overcome by the local manufacturing and import. He stated that available PPEs have been sent to the states on the basis of number of cases and the district authorities have been asked to use them sensibly.

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