Chennai: Not long ago, India in general and Prime Minster Narendra Modi in particular, came in for ‘global praise’ for ‘efficiently’ handling Covid-19 in the densely populated country.
But situation is no more the same. For, just 10 days after recording two lakh Covid-19 cases, India surpassed the three lakh-mark today with the worst daily spike of 11,458 infections, while the death toll too climbed to 8,884 with 386 new fatalities.
The above are figures released by the Union Health Ministry. Read more to understand the situation better: India took 64 days to cross the 1 lakh-mark from 100 cases, then in another fortnight it reached the grim milestone of two lakh cases. It has now become the fourth worst-hit nation by the pandemic with a caseload of 3,08,993, according to coronavirus statistics website Worldometer.
Experts express worry that India would reach the third spot, if not the second, soon, if the numbers increase in this speed. There is also another concern- testing. “If testing is conducted in a more widespread manner, the numbers would increase even more rapidly,” says a retired government doctor.
Dr P Balakrishnan, convener of Federation of Government Doctors Association, said yet another total lockdown should be implemented soon soon, “It is the failure of implementation of system. People are sluggish about following the directions given by government. Relaxation does not mean the disease is under control.”
“We need to go in for a total lockdown for 14 days, at least in Chennai and its suburbs-Kanchipuram, Chengalpet and Thiruvallur. It looks like a community spread and I feel that the entire population must be screened and we need to conduct door to door screening in a span of three to five days. Apart from thermal scanners, we need to use Digital Pulse Oximeter as some people are masking temperature by taking paracetamol. We should use the drugs used by Cuba and China.”
Numbers speak
With the fresh cases, India’s coronavirus tally has now climbed to 3,08,993. India is now the fourth worst-hit nation by the pandemic. Active cases stand at 1,45,779, while 1,54,329 people have recovered and one patient has migrated.
Of the 386 new deaths reported by the Ministry in its data updated at 8 am, 129 were in Delhi, 127 in Maharashtra, 30 in Gujarat, 20 in Uttar Pradesh, 18 in Tamilnadu, 9 each in West Bengal, Telangana and Madhya Pradesh, 7 each in Karnataka and Rajasthan, 6 each in Haryana and Uttarakhand, 4 in Punjab, 2 in Assam, 1 each in Kerala, Jammu and Kashmir and Odisha.