BENGALURU: As the number of COVID-19 positive cases increase steadily, the fight to contain the spread of the dreaded disease has entered a critical phase and the next few days would give a clear indication of whether the virus is contained or it has spread within the community. On Saturday, 12 new cases were reported in the state taking the total to 76. Dr Prakash Kumar, Joint Director, Communicable Diseases, State Health Department, said “as of now” there was no indication of community transmission of the virus, but the next one week would be “very critical”.
“If there is no spike in cases in the next few days, then community transmission will not be there,” he said, emphasising the importance of containing its spread by strictly following the guidelines. “Fourteen days after the closure of all points of entry into the country (on March 22) will be important as it would indicate if there is any community transmission or not, “ he said. When there is no known source of infection among the newly infected patients, then the outbreak is considered to have reached the community transmission phase. So far, the infection is in the second stage – local transmission – where people get the infection from known sources of infection like a relative or someone who has come back from abroad with the infection, officials said.
Although the number of positive cases in the state is increasing by the day, the officials attributed it to better surveillance measures and the increase in the number of tests. On an average, around 200 tests have been done daily in the last few days. Of the 3,076 tests done so far, 2,763 are found negative and 76 tested positive. The state is keeping a strict vigil on all those who are under quarantine. As many as 900 teams, consisting of two officials each, have been formed to be in touch with those under quarantine and 50 Home Quarantine Enforcement squads have been formed to take action against those not following the guidelines.
So far, 101 persons have been shifted from home quarantine to institutional quarantine. “People have to cooperate with the authorities by staying home and strictly following the guidelines,” Dr C Nagaraj, Director, Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Chest Diseases said on Saturday. Sources said authorities are focusing more on around 1.25 lakh people who have returned from abroad, while also opening fever clinics to conduct initial screening for others. “To rule out the possibility of community spread, people suffering from severe pneumonia are tested and all of them are found to be negative. As of Saturday, there is no concrete evidence of community spread,” said an official in the State Health Department.
US-BASED CENTRE FORESEES 24 CRORE INFECTED IN INDIA
The Centre for Disease Dynamics, Economics & Policy (CDDEP), Washington DC and Delhi headquartered public health research organisation, has reported shockingly grave COVID-19 projections for India.
Its report, claiming to be in collaboration with Johns Hopkins University, USA, says India is likely to see between 12.5 crore (best case scenario) to 24 crore (worst case scenario) infected with COVID-19 virus.
Best case scenario with increased virulence will peak in mid June
The worst case scenario will peak around April 25.
Worst case scenario due to failure of rate of testing and social distancing measures.
Warns of more deaths after July though the epidemic to taper off after August.
Report states India will be able to hospitalise only 25 lakh, which is a mere 1% of the infected population. This is against global hospitalisation rate of 10%.
Foresees, a total of 1 lakh ventilators in the country to be too short and posing a huge health burden on the treatment demands.
Report also warns that national lockdown being counterproductive, spelling adverse economic impact.