With 38,442 Tests So Far, Health Ministry Says No Community Transmission; ‘Chemical’ Showers for Migrants in UP

The Union Health Ministry on Monday reiterated that there  is “no community transmission as of now” of the contagious coronavirus in the country, contrary to expert opinion. The ministry said that the country is still at the stage of local transmission.
“If there will be a community transmission we will want to covey it to the community through you (media) to increase the level of alertness and management for COVID-19 at the field level,” Indian Express reported Lav Aggarwal, Joint Secretary in the Health Ministry, as saying.
The denial to reports of community transmission comes at a time when many health experts around the country reportedly have  opined that the government has little basis to claim that there is no community transmission. According to them, with less number of tests conducted so far by the government, this could be case of ‘absence of evidence’ and not ‘evidence of absence’.
Officials of Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR), the country’s leading medical research body in its fight against coronavirus, apprised on Monday that 38,442 tests for COVID-19 have been conducted so far in the country. As many as 3,501 of them were conducted on Sunday.
More importantly, the centre reportedly downplayed its own ‘limited community transmission’ wording in a Standard Operating Procedure (SoP) document released on the same day.
The SoP document released by the Health Ministry on Monday described the current phase of coronavirus spread in India as local and limited community transmission, according to an India Today report.
According to the report, the SoP says that it is applicable to the “current phase of Covid-19 pandemic in India - local transmission and limited transmission.”
As of Monday evening, with 92 fresh cases the total number of confirmed coronavirus cases in the country rose to 1,071 and the number of deaths due to COVID-19 have reached 29, Union Health Ministry informed.
Meanwhile, National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) has demanded disciplinary and penal action against officials responsible for forcefully sanitising a group of migrants with "chemicals" in Uttar Pradesh, according to PTI.
Migrant workers who were returning to their homes in Uttar Pradesh were showered with ‘chemical’ on Sunday by a team on sanitising duty at the Bareilly Bus Stand, Times of India reported.
According to the report, the sanitising team sprayed the group with a diluted mixture of sodium hypochlorite, main ingredient in laundry bleach.
As days became grim for millions of migrant workers, after the announcement of 21-day nationwide lockdown on March 24 by PM Narendra Modi, Supreme Court on Monday took note of the hardships faced by these workers.
The top court, while hearing a petition seeking court orders to provide shelter, food and medical aid to the workers who are fleeing from urban areas across the country, sought a status report from the Centre by Tuesday on the measures taken in view of the large – scale migration of labourers from cities to their native villages amid the coronavirus – induced lockdown across the country.