Positive results of lockdown, but cannot let guard down

The 21-day lockdown appeared to be yielding “relatively positive” results, the government said on Monday but cautioned that India cannot let its guard down in the battle against COVID-19 as one mistake could take the country back to square one.

Despite sporadic COVID-19 cases with no travel of contact history, the government insisted that the outbreak in the country was “technically, still at local transmission” stage and not progressed to the community transmission stage which witnesses an exponential rise in infections.

“As per our analyses, India moved from 100 COVID-19 patients to 1000 patients over a period of 12 days. During the same 12 day period, several developed countries which are smaller than India saw an increase in patients between 3,500 and as high as 8,000,” Lav Aggarwal, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Health, told reporters at a daily briefing here.

Aggarwal said the term “limited community transmission”, used in a Health Ministry advisory should not be “extra-interpreted”. There were apprehensions that about community transmission of COVID-19 after a health ministry document on Sunday said that “limited community transmission” has begun in India.

“If the government feels that the stage of community transmission has set in, it will acknowledge it but it is not there yet,” Aggarwal said.

India reported 92 new cases and four deaths in the last 24 hours, taking the total number of confirmed cases to 1071 and casualties to 29. On the brighter side, 99 persons have been cured of the disease.

A disease outbreak is assessed through four key stages – Stage I is usually when cases are introduced from outside the country and not of local origin. Local transmission, where a section of people with a travel history to affected regions spread infection through contact covers stage 2. Community transmission falls under stage 3 where healthcare workers are unable to trace the source of the infection, while Stage 4 is an epidemic when there are several clusters of the infection.

“This is an everyday battle. We are in a relatively positive phase now. But if we fail to follow the guidelines 100%, we can come back to zero. Even 99% compliance can lead us to failure,” Aggarwal said.

He said the elderly with co-morbid conditions such as diabetes, hypertension, asthma, heart disease, or decreased immunity were more susceptible to COVID-19 infections if appropriate preventive measures were not taken.

Aggarwal said early identification was a crucial step in the fight against COVID-19 and urged people not to hide any symptoms and reach out to the government for help.