COVID-19: Centre rushes teams to 20 worst-hit districts; testing in India crosses million-mark

India on Sunday witnessed the biggest increase in COVID-19 cases in a single day as 2,487 fresh infections took the total confirmed cases past the 40,000-mark, even as testing for the virus crossed the one million landmark.

The Centre also rushed medical teams to 20 worst-hit districts across the country to support the states in implementation of the containment measures and assist the state governments.

India registered a sharp increase in COVID-19 deaths with 83 patients succumbing to the disease, taking the total deaths to 1,306.

The 20 worst-hit districts are Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Delhi (South-East), Indore, Pune, Jaipur, Thane, Surat, Chennai, Hyderabad, Bhopal, Jodhpur, Delhi (Central), Agra, Kolkata, Kurnool, Vadodara, Guntur, Krishna and Lucknow.

The Indian Council of Medical Research announced that it had conducted 10,46,450 tests for COVID-19 across its network of over 400 diagnostic labs, including private partners, joining the league of handful of nations to have crossed the landmark.

Follow the latest updates on the coronavirus outbreak in India here.

Health Minister Harsh Vardhan said that India was now carrying out 74,000 tests per day even as the doubling rate for confirmed cases was now at 12 days if one took into account the past three day.

According to the Health Ministry, these 20 districts across the country accounted for 68% of the total cases, prompting the government to tighten measures in these regions. These 20 districts have also accounted for 72% of the total deaths.

As of Sunday, India has 28,070 active cases, while 10,886 patients have recovered and been discharged from hospitals since the first case of COVID-19 in the country was reported on January 30.

In eight districts across the country – Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Chennai, Central Delhi, Kolkata, North Delhi, Kanpur Nagar and Krishna (Andhra Pradesh) – COVID-19 cases were doubling at a rate faster than 10 days.

Seven districts – Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Indore, Surat, Central Delhi and Krishna – were reporting a case fatality rate higher than the national average of 3.2%.

On the testing front, nine districts including Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Indore, Thane, Agra, Kurnool, Kolkata had confirmation rates higher than two times of the national average of 4.4%.

A more worrying part was nine of the 20 worst-hit districts were short on health infrastructure.

“We need to adhere to strict physical distancing and basic hand hygiene etiquettes properly to take lockdown 3.0 to a logical end,” Harsh Vardhan said.

The minister also urged the people of the country to observe the extended period of lockdown in letter and spirit and treat it as an effective intervention to cut down the chain of transmission of COVID-19.