4 March
Latest Updates
– As per the media reports on Wednesday late night, confirmed Covid-19 cases have risen to 29 in India, a sharp rise from the five cases until 2 March.
– A Paytm employee in Gurugram (earlier Gurgaon) contracted Covid-19 novel coronavirus after returning from Italy.
– An Accenture employee working in a Hyderabad office is also suspected to have contracted coronavirus, according to sources close to PT, although official confirmation is awaited.
– 16 of the 21 tourists group quarantined at ITBP facility in New Delhi tested positive. Out of the 16 patients tested positive, 15 are Italians, and one is an Indian national.
– The government is, however, yet to make a decision whether they should be sent back to Italy or treated here. The infected will likely be moved to Safdarjung Hospital, reported Business Today.
– The government announced that going forward all flights and passengers will be part of the screening and will not be limited to only 12 countries earlier listed.
– All international passengers arriving in India will be required to submit self-declaration forms the moment they arrive.
– In the wake of experts advising people to avoid mass gatherings, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has announced his plans to not participate in Holi Milan programme.
– PM Modi also held a review meeting to discuss India’s preparedness to address the coronavirus epidemic and assured people that there was no reason to panic.
3 March
– As part of the measures to contain the spread of the virus, India issued a travel ban on four countries – China, South Korea, Italy and Iran.
– The government screened around 15,000 people at seaports; more than one million people at the Nepal border and 0.5 million across airports.
Status in NCR
4 March
– Six Noida people who were in contact with a 45-year-old Delhi patient test negative.
– The Delhi government has reserved 230 beds in isolation wards at 25 hospitals and also issued advisories to schools urging them to take precautionary measures.
3 March
– A 45-year-old man was diagnosed with the coronavirus infection in the city.
– Five students from the Noida school where the infected man’s son attended classes are now being screened.
– More than 40 people in NCR, who came in contact with the patient, are also kept under observation.
Status in Hyderabad, Telangana
4 March
– The state government announced Rs1bn for infrastructure and other measures to halt the spread of coronavirus.
– More than 3,000 beds would be kept ready for isolation of patients showing symptoms of the disease. Around 250 to 300 beds would be arranged to treat positive cases.
– Hyderabad metro station and various contact spaces, such as the escalators and elevators have been sanitised.
– In an email sent to staff, science-based company DSM, located in Raheja mindspace, in the heart of Hyderabad’s tech and industrial corridor, has stated that one of its employees has been tested positive. An official announcement from Telangana government or India’s Heath Ministry is still due.
3 March
Around 36 of the 88 people who came in contact with the techie are showing symptoms of the virus, according to the government officials. The suspected people are being kept in isolation for 14 days.
The Karnataka and Telangana authorities could only identify the 85 people who came into contact with the techie.
Status in Rajasthan
4 March
– Rajasthan Health Minister Raghu Sharma said that at least 215 people came in contact with the Covid-19 affected group of Italian tourists.
– Swab samples of 93 people were collected of which 51 turned negative while reports of the remaining are pending.
– 76 people in Jaipur, 53 in Jhunjhunu, 44 in Bikaner, 14 each in Jodhpur and Jaisalmer, six in Udaipur came in contact with the Italian visitors group.
– The Government of Rajasthan has allocated a quarantine ward at the newly-inaugurated hospital at Rajasthan University of Health Sciences in Jaipur.
3 March
– The wife of the Italian tourist also tested positive for the virus.
– The Government of Rajasthan ordered sanitisation of hotels where the 23-member group including the Italian couple stayed.
2 March
– The Government of Rajasthan has alerted its medical staff after an Italian tourist who travelled from Delhi was tested positive for coronavirus Covid-19 on 2 March.
Status in Uttar Pradesh
4 March
– According to Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan, all six patients in Agra who were family members of the Delhi patient have been tested positive for coronavirus today.
– Isolation wards have been set up at the Deendayal Upadhyay Hospital in the city of Varanasi.
Status in Bengaluru, Karnataka
4 March
– Karnataka Medical Education Minister K Sudhakar that around 24 people working with the 24-year-old techie, who was infected with Coronavirus in Hyderabad, have been asked to work from home.
– Intel has stated that one of its employees in Bengaluru has “potentially been exposed” to coronavirus and is under quarantine.
– Five people suspected of being infected with coronavirus have been admitted to the isolation wards of Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Chest Diseases in Bengaluru.
Status in Kerala
28 February
Kerala Health Minister KK Shailaja informed that all the three students, who were tested positive with coronavirus, were cured.
3 February
The state confirmed its third coronavirus case.
2 February
Another coronavirus case was confirmed in a student who returned from Wuhan.
30 January
The Ministry of Health & Family Welfare of India confirmed the country’s first Covid-19 case on 30 January in a student who arrived in Kerala state from Wuhan.
The Coronavirus Action Plan: will it help contain COVID-19?
The UK Government has published a policy paper entitled ‘Coronavirus Action Plan’ to detail how it plans to prepare for and contain a potential outbreak of the novel coronavirus. The plan consists of four segments: containing the virus, delaying its spread, researching its origins, and mitigating the impact should the virus spread further.
As the number of COVID-19 cases in the UK rises to 51, the document has been published during the phase where containment is still very prominent. Currently, the advice is for citizens to minimize contact with each other, and advises no longer shaking hands. However, GlobalData believes that if people adhere to vigilant hand hygiene, this precaution is unnecessary. Furthermore, hand sanitizer gel is quickly being depleted in stores around the country, with sales tripling over the last three weeks. Strict distancing strategies could be implemented by encouraging more working from home, reducing the number of large-scale gatherings, and school closures. This being said, the latter will certainly impact the public workforce, including the National Health Service, as many parents would need to be at home with their children during this isolation period.
The National Health Service’s non-emergency call line, 111, has an advisory service that aims to streamline care and prioritize patients according to symptoms. While the majority of the coronavirus cases are mild to moderate, a minority will require hospital care. Although there are no estimates of how high the number of cases will reach, Prime Minister Boris Johnson anticipates that an increase in cases is inevitable. Johnson has cautioned that “this will get worse before it gets better”.
Common questions about this outbreak include how the National Health Service will cope with an influx of cases and what measures are in place to deal with new cases. The policy paper stipulates that 30 hospitals are on standby to receive new cases, with each reserving isolation pods in the event of a coronavirus arrival. These hospitals may also end up cancelling routine treatments and appointments to prioritise infected patients if widespread transmission occurs.
While there is no current treatment or cure for COVID-19, hospitals are aiming to optimise symptomatic care and manage complications in comorbid patients. The UK Government has already pledged £20M ($25.6M) to the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) to develop a new vaccine. the monumental effort put in place by various organisations to rapidly bring a COVID-19 vaccine to market, GlobalData anticipates the timeline to be at least 10 months away, meaning that hygienic and exposure-control measures will continue to be the first line of defense for a significant length of time.
Coronavirus outbreak: The countries affected
The 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV), officially named as Covid-19 by the WHO, has spread to 77 more countries apart from China alarming public health authorities across the world. A total of 93,200 (including 80,380 in Mainland China, Hong Kong, and Macau) confirmed cases of novel coronavirus infection including 3,204 deaths (including 2,983 in China, 79 in Italy, 77 in Iran, 32 in South Korea, 12 in Japan, nine in the US, four in France, and one each in the Philippines, San Marino, Spain, Australia, Thailand, and Taiwan) have been reported across the world as of 04 March 2020.??????