NEW DELHI: As nearly 230 new cases of COVID-19 were confirmed in the country in the last 24 hours, the government on Tuesday put the blame on citizens for violating lockdown norms saying it has led to the spike in cases.
Addressing the daily press conference to provide updates on the COVID-19 situation in the country, Joint Secretary in Health Ministry Lav Agarwal said 227 cases have been reported in the last 24 hours and he attributed the increase to "lack of people's support and delay in timely detection" of the cases.
The Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare also said that as the number of hotspots of the disease have increased, it is implementing rigorous contact tracing and cluster containment strategies.
The number of confirmed cases at the time of reporting stood at 1251 while 32 deaths—from Gujarat, West Bengal and Madhya Pradesh-- have been confirmed due to infection.
The cluster containment or red-zone approach, officials explained, involved promptly checking and sensitize every household within 3 km, 5km or 10 km-radius of the house of an infected person.
And also identifying those who have come in contact with the affected, to prevent community spread of the virus.
“Extensive contact tracings are being done to identify people who have come in contact with the confirmed patients while there are also household surveys being carried out to see if COVID 19 symptoms or influenza-like illnesses are present in people in identified areas,” said Lav Agarwal.
Rapid response teams working with local health officials are implementing the plan.
The health workers are urging those having symptoms of cough, fever and breathing difficulty to get themselves tested and stay home quarantined.
Till Tuesday morning, there were 16 hotspots identified in the country—spread across many states.
Dr Sujit Kumar Singh, director, National Communicable Disease Centre under the health ministry told this newspaper that these hotspots were further categorized as per the distribution of cases.
"The districts where large number of cases have been found in multiple localities are a bigger worry for us, as opposed to cities where cases are confined to few localities or clusters," said Dr Singh.
On Tuesday, the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority under the department of pharmaceuticals directed drug manufacturers to produce and maintain sufficient stocks of essential drugs at any point of time.
"All efforts are made to ensure production of drugs and medical devices during the period of lockdown," NPPA said in a statement.
(With PTI inputs)