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MoHFW and ICMR hold a conflicting statement over Community Spread
Are we entering a critical week where community spread can take place or is the situation under control? This question is brought into light as coronavirus cases spike, Health Minister, Dr. Harshvardhan says it will take 3 more weeks to flatten the curve, hinting at an extension of the lockdown. His statement comes even as an ICMR study suggests that we could be entering stage 3 transmission or community spread.
Cases have risen over 600 in 24 hours, witnessing a big jump in the Covid-19 confirmations, enough to spark fears of community spread. Lav Agarwal, Joint Secretary of the Health Ministry further stated that although India might not have entered stage 3 yet, the rate at which the cases are spiking up, it is a possibility if the necessary precautions are not adhered to, to flatten the curve over the next month. He further said that the bigger problem at hand is to concentrate on containment steps collectively taken by citizens.
The biggest worry for health officials is at what stage of outbreak India is in, A later study by the Indian Council of Medical Research suggests community spread may have already started. The ICMR’s findings are based on samples of people suffering from severe acute respiratory illnesses. Of the 5911 patients tested, 104 or 1.8% tested positive for Covid-19, at least 40 of them had no travel history or contact with a patient. These unexplained cases have come from 36 districts in 15 states. R. Ganga Ketkar, an ICMR scientist stated that they have recently expanded the testing strategy further to include all symptomatic cases in hotspot areas. Punjab CM, Amarinder Singh has echoed this study in his talks, emphasizing that the primary source for a number of people is missing which points towards a much wider spread. The ICMR had tested once before, taking random samples from many districts across to check for community transmission. In weeks before March 14th, they did not find anyone to be positive of Covid-19 without a travel history or primary contact while the 2nd report suggests that stage 3 has been entered into within clusters, however, the Union Health Ministry disagrees. The 2 bodies of the Government have conflicting opinions but the ICMR must ramp up their testing strategy and expand the study to include more clusters.
