(TibetanReview.net, May12’20) – India appears to be headed for a fourth Covid-19 lockdown after a six-hour meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and state chief ministers on Apr 11 afternoon. “I am of the firm view that the measures needed in the first phase of lockdown were not needed during the second phase and, similarly, the measures needed in the third phase are not needed in the fourth,” an official release quoted Modi as saying, indicating that there will be considerable relaxations during the fourth lockdown after May 17.
Modi is to address the nation at 8 tonight to detail the government’s further plans for opening up the economy while ensuring the curtailment of the pandemic that is still raging in the country.
“We now have a reasonably clear indication as to the geographical spread of the pandemic in India, including worst affected areas. Moreover, over the past few weeks, officials have understood operating procedures in a time such as this, right up to the district level,” timesofindia.com May 12 quoted Modi as saying, suggesting that the disease tracking mechanism was gaining experience and becoming more effective.
Four states account for 66 percent of the total cases and within the states the cases are concentrated in relatively few districts.
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India reported 3,604 new cases and 87 new deaths during the past 24 hours as of May 12 at 8AM (GMT+5:30), taking their totals to 70,756 infections and 2,293 deaths, according to the tally of India’s Ministry of Health.
India is currently the country with the 13th highest cumulative total of Covid-19 cases and 16th highest number of deaths from the pandemic.
With a total of 22,455 infected persons having recovered, 46,008 cases remain active.
Maharashtra, the worst-hit state by a huge margin, had a cumulative total of 23,401 cases after 1,230 fresh cases in the past 24 hours, followed by Gujarat with 8,541 (+347) cases, Tamil Nadu with 8,002 (+798) cases, Delhi with 7,233 (+310) cases, Rajasthan with 3,988 (+174) cases, Madhya Pradesh with 3,785 (+171) cases, Uttar Pradesh with 3,573 (+106) cases, West Bengal with 2,063 (+124) cases, Andhra Pradesh with 2,018 (+38) cases, Punjab with 1,877 (+54) cases, and Telangana with 1,275 (+79) cases.
Besides Jammu & Kashmir had 879 (+18) cases, Karnataka had 862 (+14) cases, Bihar had 747 (+51) cases, Haryana had 730 (+27) cases, Kerala had 519 (+7) cases, Odisha had 414 (+37) cases, Chandigarh had 174 (+5) cases, Jharkhand had 160 (+3) cases, and Tripura had 152 (+2) cases.
Other badly hit states/Union Territories were Uttarakhand 68 (+0); Assam 65 (+2), Himachal Pradesh, 59 (+4); Chattisgarh 59 (+0); Ladakh, 42 (+0), Andaman and Nicobar Islands, 33 (+0); and Meghalaya 13 (+0), and Puducherry 9 (+3).
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 868 (+36), followed by Gujarat 513 (+20), Madhya Pradesh 221 (+6), West Bengal 190 (+5), Rajasthan 113 (+6), Uttar Pradesh 80 (+6), Delhi 73 (+0), Tamil Nadu 53 (+6), Andhra Pradesh 45 (+0), Punjab 31 (+0), Karnataka 31 (+0), Telangana 30 (+0), Haryana 11 (+1), Jammu & Kashmir 10 (+1), Bihar 6 (+0), Kerala 4 (+0), Jharkhand 3 (+0), Odisha 3 (+0), Himachal Pradesh 2 (+0), Assam 2 (+0), and Chandigarh 2 (+0). Besides two states, namely Meghalaya, and Uttarakhand had 1 death each. (Source: https://www.mohfw.gov.in/)
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Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has again appealed to the Centre on May 11 to keep containment zones under lockdown but open up the rest of the national capital.
The number of containment zones in the city had come down from 94 to 81 over May 3 to 11. Containment zone restrictions are implemented municipal ward-wise while the centres designation of zones ass green orange and red are determined over much, much larger areas district-wise.
Three of the 11 districts of the city — Southeast, Central, and North — are under the scanner of the Centre for high confirmation rate, fatality rate and doubling rate.
Officials have pointed out that a municipal ward-wise classification would better suit Delhi, which has a population of over 20 million spread across 272 wards, reported indianexpress.com May 12. Currently, around .552 million people were residing in the containment zones, the report said.
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Across the world the total number of Covid-19 cases had surged well past the 4.1 million mark to reach 4,178,346 with 286,355 deaths as of May 12 at 1:02:26 PM (GMT-4), according to the Dashboard maintained by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University. There were 61,579 new cases and 3,483 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 (1,347,936), Spain (227,436), UK (224,332), Russia (221,344), Italy (219,814), France (177,547), Germany (172,576), Brazil (169,594), Turkey (139,771), Iran (109,286), China (84,011), Canada (71,264), Peru (67,307) and India (70,827).
The countries with the most number of deaths were US (80,684), UK (32,141), Italy (30,739), Spain (26,744), France (26,646), Brazil (11,653), Belgium (8,707), Germany (7,661), Iran (6,685), Netherlands (5,475), Canada (5,115), China (4,637), Turkey (3,841), Mexico (3,573), Sweden (3,256) and India (2,294).
