(TibetanReview.net, May13’20) – “The novel coronavirus is going to be with us for long time, but we can’t let our lives revolve around it,” said Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi May 12 while announcing that the fourth phase of a nationwide Covid-19 lockdown, beginning May 18, will be in a new form with new rules.
Stressing that “we have to protect ourselves and move ahead as well,” he indicated that there will be much more relaxations. “Lockdown 4 will have totally different rules and will be based on suggestions by the states. The new measures will be announced by May 18. We will fight and move forward by following rules,” Modi said as he also announced a Rs 20 thousand billion economic package.
“We have a twofold challenge – to reduce the transmission rate of the disease, and to increase public activity gradually,” Modi was quoted as saying.
And he reminded everyone, “even as we look at the gradual withdrawal of the lockdown, we should constantly remember that till we do not find a vaccine or a solution, the biggest weapon with us to fight the virus is social distancing.”
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Modi’s public address came as the country reported 3,525 new Covid-19 cases and 122 new deaths during the past 24 hours as of May 13 at 8AM (GMT+5:30), taking their cumulative totals to 74,281 infections and 2,415 deaths, according to the tally of India’s Ministry of Health.
India is currently the country with the 12th highest cumulative total of Covid-19 cases and 16th highest number of deaths from the pandemic.
With a total of 24,386 infected persons having recovered, 47,480 cases remain active.
Maharashtra, the worst-hit state by a huge margin, had a cumulative total of 24,427 cases after 1,026 fresh cases were reported in the past 24 hours, followed by Gujarat with 8,903 (+362) cases, Tamil Nadu with 8,718 (+716) cases, Delhi with 7,639 (+406) cases, Rajasthan with 4,126 (+138) cases, Madhya Pradesh with 3,986 (+201) cases, Uttar Pradesh with 3,664 (+91) cases, West Bengal with 2,173 (+110) cases, Andhra Pradesh with 2,090 (+72) cases, Punjab with 1,914 (+37) cases, and Telangana with 1,326 (+51) cases.
Besides Jammu & Kashmir had 934 (+55) cases, Karnataka had 925 (+63) cases, Bihar had 831 (+84) cases, Haryana had 780 (+50) cases, Kerala had 524 (+5) cases, Odisha had 437 (+23) cases, Chandigarh had 187 (+13) cases, Jharkhand had 172 (+12) cases, and Tripura had 154 (+2) cases.
Other badly hit states/Union Territories were Uttarakhand 69 (+1), Himachal Pradesh 65 (+6), Assam 65 (+2), Chattisgarh 59 (+0), Ladakh, 42 (+0), Andaman and Nicobar Islands, 33 (+0), Puducherry 13 (+1), and Meghalaya 13 (+0).
Besides, Goa (7), Manipur (2), Mizoram (1), Arunachal Pradesh (1), and Dadar Nagar Haveli (1) had reported cases.
Maharashtra also had the most number of deaths at 921 (+53), followed by Gujarat 537 (+24), Madhya Pradesh 225 (+4), West Bengal 198 (+8), Rajasthan 117 (+4), Delhi 86 (+13), Uttar Pradesh 82 (+2), Tamil Nadu 61 (+8), Andhra Pradesh 46 (+1), Punjab 32 (+2), Telangana 32 (+2), Karnataka 31 (+0), Haryana 11 (+0), Jammu & Kashmir 10 (+0), Bihar 6 (+0), Kerala 4 (+0), Jharkhand 3 (+0), Odisha 3 (+0), Chandigarh 3 (+1), Himachal Pradesh 2 (+0), and Assam 2 (+0). Besides three states/ union territories, namely Meghalaya, Puducherry, and Uttarakhand had 1 death each. (Source: https://www.mohfw.gov.in/)
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Most of the cases in the states with high numbers of cases are from limited number of cluster areas: Mumbai in Maharashtra; Chennai in Tamil Nadu; Ahmedabad in Gujarat; Indore in Madhya Pradesh; Kolkata in West Bengal; and Southeast, Central, and North districts in Delhi.
The doubling time had improved to 12.2 days from 10.9 days, tribuneindia.com May 12 cited India’s Health Minister Harsh Vardhan as saying, highlighting the need for enhanced surveillance and contact-tracing in view of migrants and expats returning home.
Vardhan has said the fatality rate was 3.2 per cent while the recovery rate was progressively increasing and stood at 31.74 per cent.
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Across the world the total number of Covid-19 cases had surged well past the 4.26 million mark to reach 4,262,799 with 291,981 deaths as of May 13 at 11:02:26 PM (GMT-4), according to the Dashboard maintained by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University. There were 84,453 new cases and 5,626 new deaths during the preceding 24 hours across 187 countries and regions.
The countries with the most number of reported cases thus far were US (1,369,964), Russia (232,243), Spain (228,030), UK (227,741), Italy (221,216), France (178,349), Brazil (178,214), Germany (173,171), Turkey (141,475), Iran (110,767), China (84,018), and India (74,480).
The countries with the most number of deaths were US (82,387), UK (32,769), Italy (30,911), France (26,994), Spain (26,920), Brazil (12,461), Belgium (8,761), Germany (7,738), Iran (6,733), Netherlands (5,529), Canada (5,300), China (4,637), Mexico (3,926), Turkey (3,894), Sweden (3,313) and India (2,415).
