The Union health ministry has identified 170 districts as Covid-19 hotspots and 207 districts as potential hotspots, officials said on Wednesday, reiterating that there has been no community transmission of the disease in the country so far.
Addressing the daily briefing to provide updates on coronavirus situation in the country, Joint Secretary in the Ministry of Health Lav Agarwal said that states have been asked to classify districts which have reported a higher number of cases as hotspots, the districts where cases have been reported as non-hotspots, and green zones where no cases have been reported.
'Hotspots are those districts which are reporting more number of cases or where the rate of growth of Covid-19 cases is high,' Agarwal said, adding a detailed direction has been issued to states stating consolidated efforts are required to utilise this period of lockdown to curb the spread of the virus.
'Cabinet secretary held a video conference today (Wednesday) with all chief secretaries, DGPs, health secretaries, collectors, SPs, municipal commissioners and CMOs where hotspots were discussed and orientation on field-level implementation of containment strategy was given.
'They were told about large outbreak containment strategies, cluster containment strategies. Delineation of buffer and containment zone, parameter mapping, defining of entry and exit points were also discussed in detail,' he said.
The joint secretary said movement of people will not be allowed in containment zones except for those related with essential services and special teams will search for new cases and samples will be collected and tested as per sampling criteria.
The officials said that health facilities in buffer zone outside the containment zone will be oriented and people facing SARI and influenza-like symptoms will be tested there.
'Special teams have been formed which will work in containment zone and do contact tracing and house-to-house surveys. Cases of fever, cough and breathlessness will be identified in the survey and requisite action will be taken as per protocol,' Agarwal said, adding that there has been no community transmissions so far but some local outbreaks.
Death toll rises to 392; cases climb to 11,933
The death toll due to the novel coronavirus rose to 392 with 39 fatalities reported since Tuesday evening, while the number of cases saw a jump of 1,118 to go up to 11,933 cases on Wednesday, according to the Union Health Ministry.
The number of active Covid-19 cases stood at 10,197, while as many as 1,343 people have been cured and discharged, and one has migrated, it said.
The total number of cases include 76 foreign nationals.
Thirty-nine deaths have been reported since Tuesday evening, of which 18 deaths were reported from Maharashtra, six from Uttar Pradesh, four from Gujarat, three from Madhya Pradesh, two each from Delhi and Karnataka, and one each from Telengana, Tamil Nadu, Punjab and Meghalaya.
Of the total 392 deaths, Maharashtra tops the tally with 178 fatalities, followed by Madhya Pradesh at 53, Delhi and Gujarat at 30 each and Telengana at 18.
Punjab has reported 13 deaths, Tamil Nadu 12 while Uttar Pradesh and Karnataka have reported 11 deaths each.
Andhra Pradesh has reported nine fatalities followed by West Bengal with seven deaths.
Four persons have lost their lives to Covid-19 in Jammu and Kashmir while Kerala, Haryana and Rajasthan have recorded three deaths each. Jharkhand has reported two deaths.
Meghalaya, Bihar, Himachal Pradesh, Odisha and Assam have reported one fatality each, according to ministry data.
However, a PTI tally of figures reported by various states as on Wednesday showed at least 11,946 cases and 405 deaths.
There has been a lag in the Union Health Ministry figures, compared to the number of deaths announced by different states, which officials attribute to procedural delays in assigning the cases to individual states.
According to the ministry's data updated in the evening, the highest number of confirmed cases in the country are from Maharashtra at 2,687 followed by Delhi at 1,561 and Tamil Nadu at 1,204.
Covid-19 cases have gone up to 1,005 in Rajasthan followed by 987 in Madhya Pradesh, 735 in Uttar Pradesh and 695 in Gujarat.
Telengana has 647 cases, followed by Andhra Pradesh at 503 and Kerala at 387.
The number of novel coronavirus cases has risen to 278 in Jammu and Kashmir, 277 in Karnataka, 213 in West Bengal and 199 in Haryana. Punjab has reported 186 infections so far.
Bihar has reported 70 cases, while Odisha has 60 coronavirus cases. Thirty-seven people were infected with the virus in Uttarakhand, while Himachal Pradesh, Assam and Chhattisgarh have registered 33 cases each.
Jharkhand has 27 cases, Chandigarh has 21 cases and Ladakh has 17, while 11 cases have been reported from the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
Meghalaya,Goa and Puducherry have reported seven Covid-19 infections each, Manipur and Tripura have two cases each, while Mizoram and Arunachal Pradesh have reported a case each.
'State-wise distribution is subject to further verification and reconciliation,' the ministry said on its website.
The website also mentions that a patient from Nagaland has been shifted to Assam.
Vistara announces compulsory leave without pay for senior employees
Vistara CEO Leslie Thng on Wednesday announced that senior employees will be going on compulsory leave without pay for up to three days between April 15 and April 30 as a measure to further conserve the airline's cash flow amid the lockdown to combat the coronavirus threat.
On March 27, the airline had also introduced compulsory leave without pay for up to three days between April 1 and April 14 for the same set of senior employees.
The compulsory no pay leave will affect around 1,200 employees in senior grades.
The remaining 2,800 employees of the airline such as members of cabin crew and ground handling services will be unaffected.
'With the announcement by the government of India on extending the lockdown, we continue to suspend all our domestic and international operations till 3rd May 2020 and this further impacted significantly on our cash flow with no revenue being generated over an extended period of time,' Thng said in an email to employees, which has been accessed by PTI.
Sa-Dhan urges PM to extend loan benefits to MFI
Microfinance lenders' umbrella body Sa-Dhan has urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi for an extension of the loan moratorium benefits to the MFI industry in a bid to help small-ticket borrowers, who are at the risk of being pushed into extreme hardships.
It said that despite Reserve Bank of India's circular pertaining to the moratorium on retail loans, financial institutions are refraining from extending the same benefits to microfinance institutions (MFIs).
Urging the Prime Minister to intervene on the issue of MFIs eligible for back-to-back moratorium, Sa-Dhan said there are financial institutions who are refusing to provide back-to-back moratorium to MFIs.
'If there is no timely intervention from the RBI and the government, people at large will face extremely challenging situations, which will lead to unscrupulous money lenders charging exorbitant interest rate,' P. Satish, executive director, Sa-Dhan said.
The impacts over 6 crore low-income clients (touching 30 crore lives) in over 650 districts of the country, with a portfolio of Rs 2.1 lakh crore, he said, adding that nearly 75 per cent of the microfinance loans are covered under the Shishu category of Mudra loans.
MFIs borrow from banks and development financial institutions (DFIs) to lend to the end user. Since the clients have been given a three-month moratorium, MFIs should also be provided with the moratorium facility on repayment to financial institutions, he added.
Police officials get sanitised after dispersing a crowd of migrant workers from outside the Bandra Railway Station in Mumbai, Tuesday, April 14, 2020. PTI
Bihar cases rise to 70
Four persons tested positive for Covid-19 in Bihar on Wednesday, taking the total number of people afflicted with the disease to 70, an official said.
Principal secretary, health, Sanjay Kumar said three persons from Nalanda district—a 60-year-old man and two women aged 25 and 35 years—all of whom came in contact with a coronavirus-infected patient with travel history to Dubai, have tested positive.
In addition, a 60-year-old man from Munger has also tested positive, Kumar said, adding that his contact-tracing is on.
Only Siwan, where 29 people have tested positive for the novel coronavirus, has reported more cases than Munger which shares the second spot with Begusarai with eight cases each.
However, for quite some time Munger was left with zero active cases as six patients had recovered and a Qatar-returnee, from whom they were said to have picked up the contagion, had died last month.
Nalanda, the home district of chief minister Nitish Kumar, now has four active cases while two patients from the district have recovered.
The state has reported 10 cases in the last five days while no fresh cases were reported on April 10 and 12.
A total of 29 patients across the state have so far recovered from the disease.
Altogether 8,263 samples have been tested till date at five facilities in the state.
Gujarat police hire cyber volunteers
Gujarat Police have started recruiting cyber volunteers in Ahmedabad and Surat to help in curbing the spread of hate content and rumours over coronavirus and lockdown on social media.
Over 5,000 people, including nearly 800 experts in IT, computer and forensic science, have responded in less than two weeks to applications sought by the Gujarat Police for recruiting them as 'cyber volunteers, warriors and gurus', additional director-general of police, CID Crime, Shamsher Singh told PTI.
'In the current situation, these volunteers are all the more important for us because of the fake news and hate messages being circulated on social media. These volunteers can flag such cases, and help us to take action against the offenders,' Singh said.
Since the lockdown was enforced in the country to tackle the coronavirus pandemic, police in different parts of the state have registered more than 250 FIRs related to cyber crimes and arrested over 500 people for spreading rumours and hate messages on social media platforms, Singh said.
A 'cyber volunteer' is required to have knowledge about smartphone use, cyber crimes, social media and internet services, and will help police by raising issues related to cyber bullying, online financial fraud and pornography.
A 'cyber warrior' is required to be qualified in knowledge of computers, IT and forensics, and will assist the police in the investigation of offences under the Gujarat Cyber Crime Coordination Centre.
A 'cyber guru' also must have higher qualification in computers, IT and forensic science, and will be required to impart training to police and in schools, colleges, universities on various aspects of cyber crimes, and create public awareness.
Containment zones sealed off in Kashmir
Authorities in Kashmir have sealed off the containment zones to ensure strict adherence to the standard operating procedure to contain the spread of coronavirus even as the lockdown in the Valley entered the 28th day on Wednesday, officials said.
The restrictions on the movement and assembly of people in Kashmir continued on Wednesday, they said.
The officials said the security forces sealed off main roads in most places in the Valley and erected barriers at several other locations to check the unwanted movement of the people and to enforce the lockdown.
Only persons with valid passes are allowed to move, they added.
In the declared containment or red zones across the Valley, the restrictions have been intensified as authorities have sealed those zones to ensure strict adherence to the standard operating procedure and warned of strict action against anyone who violated the prohibitory orders, the officials said.
'While all entry-exit points of areas declared as containment zones have been sealed, at least half of these points in each one of these areas have been sealed with removable barriers, enabling access into and out of them as and when required,' they said.
The local mohalla committees of all such areas have been reached out to and are onboard the administration's efforts to contain the spread of Covid-19, the officials said.
The administration has put in place an elaborate and a comprehensive mechanism to ensure all requirements and needs of the residents are covered for as long as these areas remain under restrictions, they said.
Markets across the Valley were shut and public transport was off the roads with only pharmacies and groceries allowed to open, the officials said.
Rajasthan tally goes up to 1,034
Rajasthan recorded 29 more cases of coronavirus on Wednesday, taking the tally in the state to 1,034, an official said.
The virus has so far claimed 11 lives in the state.
'As many as 29 new cases have come up today -- 15 in Jaipur and seven each in Jodhpur and Kota,' Additional Chief Secretary Rohit Kumar Singh said.
He said the total number of coronavirus positive cases in the state has risen to 1,034.
Among the coronavirus cases in Rajasthan are two Italian citizens and 54 people who were brought back from Iran and admitted to Army health centres in Jodhpur and Jaisalmer.
Jaipur has reported the highest number of 468 cases in the state, followed by 102 in Jodhpur, 64 in Kota and 59 in Banswara.
Rajasthan is under a strict lockdown from March 22 and a massive survey and screening is underway to trace the contagion.
