At a testing centre in New Delhi (Express photo/Praveen Khanna)
Union Health Minister Dr. Harsh Vardhan Thursday said there is no community spread of coronavirus in the country. India currently has over 7.67 lakh confirmed cases with 21,129 deaths and is the third worst-hit nation across the globe.
“During our discussions today, experts again stated that there is no community transmission in India. There may be some localised pockets where transmission is high but as a country, there’s no community transmission,” Dr. Harsh Vardhan was quoted as saying by news agency ANI. The health minister had this morning chaired the 18th high-level Group Of Ministers meeting to review, monitor, and evaluate the evolving situation the pandemic. A presentation on the ground situation as well as the latest statistics were made and future strategies were drawn up during the meeting.
India saw a record single-day surge of 24,879 COVID-19 cases taking the caseload to 7,67,296 on Thursday, with Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Delhi, Telangana, UP and Andhra Pradesh contributing to around 75 per cent of the new cases, according to the Union Health Ministry data. With this, the country has recorded over 20,000 cases of the infection for the seventh consecutive day. The number of recoveries stands at 4,76,377,while there are 2,69,789 active cases of coronavirus infection in the country.
For the first time in India’s outbreak since March, the Covid-19 transmission rate has increased. India’s Covid-19 reproduction number, or R, which estimates the number of people infected by one already infected person, was on a steady decline from 1.83 for months since March 4. However, in the first week of the second unlocking phase in July, the rate has shown an increase for the first time, research by the Institute of Mathematical Sciences in Chennai shows.
Only the United States and Brazil have a higher caseload than India, as per a tally maintained by the John Hopkins University.
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