918 COVID-19 cases, 31 deaths reported in 24 hrs

The death toll due to coronavirus rose to 273 and the number of cases in the country climbed to 8,447 on Sunday, an increase of 918 since Saturday evening, according to the Union Health Ministry.

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While the number of active COVID-19 cases stood at 7,409, as many as 764 people have been cured and discharged, and one had migrated, it said.

The total number of cases include 71 foreign nationals.

31 deaths have been reported since Saturday evening, of which 3 were from Madhya Pradesh, 17 from Maharashtra, five from Delhi, three from Gujarat, two from Tamil Nadu and one from Uttar Pradesh.

Of the total 273 deaths, Maharashtra tops the tally with 127 fatalities, followed by Madhya Pradesh at 36, Gujarat at 22 and Delhi at 19.

Punjab registered 11 deaths, Telengana nine fatalities and Tamil Nadu 10.

Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka have reported six deaths each while five people have lost their lives in West Bengal. Jammu and Kashmir, and Uttar Pradesh have reported four fatalities each while Haryana and Rajasthan have recorded three deaths each.

Two deaths have been reported from Kerala. Bihar, Himachal Pradesh, Odisha, Jharkhand and Assam reported one fatality each, according to the health ministry data.

However, a PTI tally of figures reported by various states as on Sunday showed at least 8,0933 cases and 296 deaths.

There has been a lag in the Union Health Ministry figures, compared to the number of cases 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 1,761, followed by Delhi at 1,069 and Tamil Nadu at 969.

COVID-19 cases have gone up to 700 in Rajasthan followed by 504 in Telangana and 564 in Madhya Pradesh. Uttar Pradesh has 452, followed by Andhra Pradesh at 381, Kerala at 374 and Gujarat at 432.

The number of novel coronavirus cases have risen to 226 in Karnataka, 224 in Jammu and Kashmir and 185 in Haryana. Punjab has reported 151 COVID-19 positive cases so far and West Bengal 134.

Bihar has reported 64 cases while Odisha has 54 coronavirus cases. 35 people were infected with the virus in Uttarakhand while Assam has 29 patients followed by Himachal Pradesh with 32 cases.

Chandigarh and Chhattisgarh have 19 cases each while Jharkhand has 25 and Ladakh 15, while 11 cases have been reported from the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

Goa and Puducherry have reported seven COVID-19 infections each, Manipur and Tripura have two cases each while Mizoram and Arunachal Pradesh have reported one case each.

'State-wise distribution is subject to further verification and reconciliation,' the ministry said on its website.

Meanwhile, the Centre focused on plans to ease some restrictions during the likely extension of the lockdown beyond April 14.

Amid demands for ramping up health surveillance, the Centre said it is expanding the COVID-19 testing capacity in state-run as well as private medical colleges.

The 21-day lockdown announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi is in place from March 25 in a bid to halt the spread of COVID-19 and is scheduled to end on Tuesday.

Four states -- Telangana, Maharashtra, Punjab and Odisha -- have already extended the coronavirus lockdown in their respective territories till April 30.

The Health ministry also asserted that the government is 'extra prepared' if there is an exponential rise in the number of coronavirus patients.

Addressing a press briefing, Health Ministry's Joint Secretary Lav Agarwal said the government is expanding the COVID-19 testing capacity in state-run as well as private medical colleges.

"We are working on an urgent basis to expand the capacity for COVID-19 testing in government and private medical colleges across the country. Fourteen mentor institutes, including the AIIMS and NIMHANS, have been identified to mentor the medical colleges and expand the coronavirus testing capacity," he added.

According to Indian Council of Medical Research officials, a total of 1,86,906 samples have so far been tested across the country, of which 7,953 have been found positive for COVID-19.

"In the last five days, on an average, 15,747 samples were tested per day and 584 of those were found to be positive per day," an Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) official said at the press briefing

A broad consensus has emerged that the national lockdown should be extended by at least two weeks after a meeting between Prime Minister Modi and state chief ministers on Saturday.

Several chief ministers at the same time have pushed for resumption of some economic activities like in the farming sector in regions with no COVID-19 cases.

The Centre in consultation with states is moving to restart economic activities in a graded manner in what is seen as a nuanced change in strategy from saving lives a month ago to saving lives as well as livelihoods now in the fight against the pandemic.

It has sought inputs related to production, labour and logistics from clusters in five key sectors to ascertain expected output if they are made operational within a fortnight and procedural support required, official sources said.

The five sectors are textiles, chemicals, electronics, steel and pharmaceutical, the sources said.

States are likely to designate districts, towns and cities as red, orange and green zones depending upon the number of COVID-19 case as part of efforts to allow differentiated restoration of normalcy with conditions like uses of masks and social distancing in public.

Union minister Nitin Gadkari said talks are underway with state governments to re-start highway construction projects where migrant labourers can be gainfully employed,

In a video-conference with PTI, the road transport, highways and MSME minister said efforts are on for facilitating a safe return of migrant labourers, an estimated 20 lakh of whom are in shelters pan-India.

"I had a meeting with road sector officials. Work can be re-started at projects with condition that adequate measures are taken for safeguard against coronavirus. We have to follow guidelines. At some places collectors have given permission, some not. We are doing a follow up along with the chief secretaries of the states," the minister said.

Gadkari's comments come against the backdrop of a report by the World Bank that migrants face a stark choice between potentially starving in urban centres without work or long and potentially fatal journeys over hundreds of miles to their home districts.

In the report titled 'South Asia Economic Update: Impact of COVID-19', the report at the same time said migrant workers returning home could become vectors carrying the coronavirus to unaffected states and villages and that preliminary findings indicated in India many out-migration areas are likely to have COVID-19 cases.

The Centre has asked the state and union territories to take welfare measures for the migrant labourers living in camps in different parts of the country that include food, shelter, medicine, mobile and video call facilities.

The Bihar government also reached out and provided relief to over 5 lakh distressed residents of the state stranded in Delhi and other parts of the country, a senior official said in Patna.

The Karnataka government said it is studying in-depth the consequences of possible relaxation of lockdown norms after April 14 and plans to come out with a clear roadmap in a day or two, according to Medical Education Minister Sudhakar K.

Kerala, which was the first state in the country to report a coronavirus infection in late January, has prepared a time table for coming out of the lockdown and there would be district-specific strategies to tackle the situation while the number of cases are on the decline.

Ramping up efforts to 'stamp out' coronavirus cases in the state, Kerala Finance Minister Thomas Isaac told PTI that an exit strategy is being prepared and restrictions are being relaxed in certain segments, including agriculture.