New Delhi: With India recording over 34,000 new cases and the total COVID count surpassing 10.38 lakh, the Indian Medical Association (IMA) Saturday said community transmission of Covid-19 in India has set in and the situation looks grim.
Attributing this statement to Dr VK Monga, Chairperson of IMA Hospital Board of India, the report said “this is now an exponential growth”.
“Every day the number of cases is increasing by more than 30,000. This is really a bad situation for the country. There are so many factors connected with it but overall this is now spreading to rural areas. This is a bad sign. It now shows a community spread,” Dr Monga said.
This statement is significant because the Union Health Ministry has been constantly maintaining that there has been no community level transmission in India as of yet contrary to what top scientists and statisticians stated.
The government maintains its claim despite the fact that India now has the third highest number of Covid-19 cases in the world trailing behind US and Brazil.
In its morning Covid-19 bulleting Saturday, the Union Health Ministry said so far 10,38,716 people in India have tested positive for Covid-19. Of these, 6,53,751 have recovered, while 26,273 have succumbed to the infection so far.
Elaborating further about the current situation, Dr Monga said now the Covid-19 cases are “penetrating down” into towns and villages. He said this will make it “very difficult to control the situation”. He also stated that containing the spread of the disease in India’s hinterland will be the key after cases in urban clusters begin to show a dip.
“In Delhi, we were able to contain it, but what about interior parts of the country in Maharashtra, Karnataka, Kerala, Goa, Madhya Pradesh (which may be the new hotspots)?” Dr Monga, was quoted as saying.
PNN/Agencies