Coronavirus Outbreak: Centre to classify all districts into three categories based on cases reported, 170 hotspots identified so far

The Union health ministry on Wednesday said that all districts across the country will be classified into three categories based on the occurrence of novel coronavirus cases in each of them. Health ministry bulletin: Health ministry joint secretary Lav Agarwal, during the daily media briefing on coronavirus, said that 1,076 new coronavirus cases have been reported in the last 24 hours, taking the country’s tally to 11,439 cases so far. While 377 deaths have been reported in total, 270 people have recovered from the infection, he added. [caption id=“attachment_8230821” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Lav Agarwal, joint secretary in the health ministry addressing the media. File image. ANI[/caption] “The percentage of patients who are recovering is 11.41 percent. This rate has been increasing in the past few days,” he was quoted as saying. Agarwal said that the aim of the exercise of classifying the districts is to “efficiently manage the fight against coronavirus pandemic”. “The districts of the country will be classified into three categories, which are hotspot districts, non-hotspot districts with cases being reported from there and the green zone districts,” he said. Follow LIVE updates on coronavirus outbreak here “The Union cabinet secretary held a video conference today with all chief secretaries, DGPs, health secretaries, collectors, SPs, municipal commissioners and CMOs in the hotspots and orientation on field level implementation of containment strategy was given,” he added. Agarwal defined the term ‘hotspot district’ as those where there are a high number of COVID-19 cases, “or rate of growth of cases is more”, reports said. Agarwal further said that around 170 districts have been categorised as hotspots as of Tuesday, whereas 207 have been categorised under as ’non-hotspot areas with some cases’. He also reiterated that there is no instance of community transmission in the country yet. “We are seeing local outbreaks or clusters. We have implemented containment measures,” he was quoted as saying by The News Minute.  Meanwhile, Dr R Gangakhedkar of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) said that 73 private labs had been approved, and 22 private labs were currently conducting tests for coronavirus. On being asked whether research had confirmed whether the COVID-19 strain had infected humans from bats, he said, “As per research in China, it was found that coronavirus might have originated due to mutation in bats. Bats might have transmitted it to pangolins, from pangolins it got transmitted to humans.” He added, “We also conducted surveillance, in which we found that there are two types of bats, and they carried coronavirus which was not capable of affecting humans. It’s rare, maybe once in 1,000 years that it gets transmitted from bats to humans.” MHA bulletin: In light of protests from migrant workers in Surat and Mumbai on Tuesday, the MHA was on Wednesday asked about the Centre’s measures to make the workers aware about the extension of the lockdown. In reply, an MHA official said that guidelines and advisories had been issued, The News Minute reported. Additionally, the MHA said that revised guidelines for the extended lockdown included relaxations of the restrictions “in areas that are not sensitive or aren’t hotposts, on two conditions: Lockdown measures and social distancing should be followed, and national COVID-19 guidelines should be followed,” the report said. With inputs from agencies