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Coronavirus in India

India will begin flights on Thursday to bring home some 400,000 citizens stranded overseas by travel restrictions due to the coronavirus pandemic, prompting concerns that imported infections could fuel contagion in the country.

India’s coronavirus cases totaled 49,390 as of Wednesday, with 1,694 deaths, and there is still no sign of the curve in new cases flattening despite a stringent, weeks-long lockdown in the world’s second most populous country.

But responding to the distress among India’s huge diaspora, the government has asked national carrier Air India to provide aircraft to bring back Indians who want to return from the Middle East, Singapore, the United Kingdom and the United States.

The Indian Navy has also been asked to help by sending two ships to evacuate citizens from the Maldives, in the Indian Ocean.

Migrant workers, students and business people were left with no way home after India suspended air travel in March, just before entering a nationwide shutdown that remains in force until 17 May.

There have been numerous tales of hardship, both financial and emotional, from people desperate to see sick relatives and attend funerals or births, while others have lost their jobs and are running out of money stranded abroad.

“Priority will be given to workers in distress, elderly people, urgent medical cases, pregnant women, as well as to other people who are stranded in difficult situations,” the Indian consulate general in Dubai said.

The first round of evacuations would bring back around 200,000 people by the middle of May and then by mid-June a total of 350,000-400,000 would be flown back, a foreign ministry official said.

“By then, we are hopeful that foreign travel will be re-opened,” the official said.

Four of the ten flights that Air India will operate on Thursday will bring back people from Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Riyadh and Doha and all into the southern state of Kerala, according to a seven-day flight plan released by the government.

Nearly 300,000 have signed up for the flights from the Middle East for which Air India is charging a little less than a normal commercial fare.

Passengers will be screened at the departing airport and only those who are asymptomatic will be allowed to board. Once they land, they will be quarantined for two weeks, the government said.
 
India jobless numbers cross 120 million in April

A lockdown to curb the spread of coronavirus has seen 122 million Indians lose their jobs in April alone, new data from a private research agency has shown.

India's unemployment rate is now at a record high of 27.1%, according to the Centre for Monitoring the Indian Economy (CMIE).

The new data shows India's unemployment figures are four times that of the US.

India doesn’t release official jobs data, but CMIE data is widely accepted.

The country has been in lockdown since 25 March to curb Covid-19 infections, causing mass layoffs and heavy job losses.

India currently has close to 50,000 reported infections.

Unemployment hit 23.5% in April, a sharp spike from 8.7% in March. This is attributed to the lockdown, which brought most economic activity - except essential services such as hospitals, pharmacies and food supplies - to a standstill.

Scenes of desperate migrant workers, particularly daily-wage earners, fleeing cities on foot to return to their villages, filled TV screens and newspapers for most of April. Their informal jobs, which employ 90% of the population, were the first to be hit as construction stopped, and cities suspended public transport.

But protracted curfews and the continued closure of businesses - and the uncertainty of when the lockdown will end - hasn’t spared formal, permanent jobs either.

Large companies across various sectors - media, aviation, retail, hospitality, automobiles - have announced massive layoffs in recent weeks. And experts predict that many small and medium businesses are likely to shut shop altogether.

A closer look at CMIE’s data shows the devastating effect the lockdown has had on India's organised economy.

Of the 122 million who have lost their jobs, 91.3 millions were small traders and labourers. But a fairly significant number of salaried workers - 17.8 million - and self-employed people - 18.2 million - have also lost work.

Agriculture, which remains the mainstay of the Indian economy, has bucked the trend, adding workers in both March and April. This isn’t unusual as many daily-wage earners return to farming in times of crisis, according to CMIE.

But experts warn that the economic cost of the lockdown is only starting to get higher.

"It is imperative that India weighs the economic cost of the lockdown on its people," Mahesh Vyas, CEO of CMIE told the BBC.

The government has begun to ease restrictions in some zones or areas which have reported a lower number of infections, while strict curfews are still in place in districts that have seen a higher number of Covid-19 positive cases.

"Zoning is a good starting point but, it cannot help for too long," Mr Vyas says. "Regions cannot work in silos. People, goods and services need mobility. Supply chains need to start working before businesses run dry of finances.”

The lockdown is slated to end on 17 May but some states have extended it further, with no clear indication as to when the country as a whole might emerge from the lockdown.

Experts are also worried because India had entered the lockdown with already high unemployment levels. At 8.7%, the rate was already at a 43-month high, up from just 3.4% in July 2017, according to CMIE.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-52559324
 
Firebat said:
India jobless numbers cross 120 million in April

A lockdown to curb the spread of coronavirus has seen 122 million Indians lose their jobs in April alone, new data from a private research agency has shown.

India's unemployment rate is now at a record high of 27.1%, according to the Centre for Monitoring the Indian Economy (CMIE).

The new data shows India's unemployment figures are four times that of the US.

India doesn’t release official jobs data, but CMIE data is widely accepted.

The country has been in lockdown since 25 March to curb Covid-19 infections, causing mass layoffs and heavy job losses.

India currently has close to 50,000 reported infections.

Unemployment hit 23.5% in April, a sharp spike from 8.7% in March. This is attributed to the lockdown, which brought most economic activity - except essential services such as hospitals, pharmacies and food supplies - to a standstill.

Scenes of desperate migrant workers, particularly daily-wage earners, fleeing cities on foot to return to their villages, filled TV screens and newspapers for most of April. Their informal jobs, which employ 90% of the population, were the first to be hit as construction stopped, and cities suspended public transport.

But protracted curfews and the continued closure of businesses - and the uncertainty of when the lockdown will end - hasn’t spared formal, permanent jobs either.

Large companies across various sectors - media, aviation, retail, hospitality, automobiles - have announced massive layoffs in recent weeks. And experts predict that many small and medium businesses are likely to shut shop altogether.

A closer look at CMIE’s data shows the devastating effect the lockdown has had on India's organised economy.

Of the 122 million who have lost their jobs, 91.3 millions were small traders and labourers. But a fairly significant number of salaried workers - 17.8 million - and self-employed people - 18.2 million - have also lost work.

Agriculture, which remains the mainstay of the Indian economy, has bucked the trend, adding workers in both March and April. This isn’t unusual as many daily-wage earners return to farming in times of crisis, according to CMIE.

But experts warn that the economic cost of the lockdown is only starting to get higher.

"It is imperative that India weighs the economic cost of the lockdown on its people," Mahesh Vyas, CEO of CMIE told the BBC.

The government has begun to ease restrictions in some zones or areas which have reported a lower number of infections, while strict curfews are still in place in districts that have seen a higher number of Covid-19 positive cases.

"Zoning is a good starting point but, it cannot help for too long," Mr Vyas says. "Regions cannot work in silos. People, goods and services need mobility. Supply chains need to start working before businesses run dry of finances.”

The lockdown is slated to end on 17 May but some states have extended it further, with no clear indication as to when the country as a whole might emerge from the lockdown.

Experts are also worried because India had entered the lockdown with already high unemployment levels. At 8.7%, the rate was already at a 43-month high, up from just 3.4% in July 2017, according to CMIE.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-52559324
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Do we have numbers to compare with other nations?
 
Cases in India continue to surge despite strict lockdown

India's health ministry says the number of coronavirus infections rose to 52,952 in India, up by 3,561 over the previous day, despite a strict weeks-long lockdown. The death toll is up by 89 to 1,783.

The spurt in cases has come from the densely packed metropolises of Mumbai, New Delhi and Ahmedabad which are also the growth engines of the economy.

Meanwhile, health officials in the southern city of Chennai are rushing to contain a coronavirus outbreak in one of Asia's largest fruit and vegetable markets.

So far, the Koyambedu market has been linked to more than 500 cases in several districts of Tamil Nadu state and the adjacent Kerala state. Over 7,000 people with connections to the market are being traced and quarantined, says J Radhakrishnan, the leader of Chennai's response to the coronavirus.
 
There is a very disturbing video from Mumbai's Sion hospital doing the rounds. Sick patients are kept next to dead bodies wrapped in plastic sheets. You would assume that the richest state government in India would do a better job at handling this :facepalm:

Just shocked by the apathy shown by the BMC. After this crisis is over, Mumbai really needs to take a closer look at the shanties. We should be able to provide permanent housing for these folks. The real estate sector needs some strong cash infusion
 
Coronavirus cases in India rose past 50,000, the health ministry said on Thursday, with the pace of new infections showing no signs of abating despite a strict weeks-long lockdown in the world's second-most populous country.

India added 3,561 cases, taking its total 52,952 - behind over 82,000 in China where the virus originated - while the death toll rose by 89 to 1,783, still low compared with the United States, United Kingdom and Italy.

Officials attributed the low toll to the government's move to impose a stay-at-home order on the nation's 1.3 billion people early in the cycle, but noted a spurt in cases from the densely packed economic centres of Mumbai, Delhi and Ahmedabad.

Health Minister Harsh Vardhan said Maharashtra, the state where Mumbai is located, was an area of particular concern and said the federal government stood ready to help.

"The (government) is ready to help in every way possible - be it manpower increase, capacity building, technical assistance, etc, or any kind of hand-holding that is required to manage the situation," he said at a meeting with state health officials.

India this week allowed some economic activity to restart in less-affected parts of the hinterland to reduce the pain for hundreds of thousands of people out of work for weeks and running short on food and cash.

But the spreading contagion will increase the pressure on Prime Minister Narendra Modi to keep restrictions in place so it does not spin out of control and overwhelm the limited public health system.

India has reported an average of 2,800 cases each day over the past week. By comparison, China has reported new cases in the single digits over the same period.

Infectious diseases experts have also expressed concern that official data in India is not capturing the full extent of the crisis. The infection numbers in India fall far short of the US, which has 1.2 million cases and is nearing 75,000 deaths despite a much smaller population.

While the federal lockdown is due to end on May 17, authorities in south-central Telangana state decided to extend the lockdown till May 29 in a bid to flatten the curve of infections before opening up fully.

"The people themselves have asked for an extension," said Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao.

India, along with the US, Russia and Brazil, was among the big countries that had not yet been able to slow the pace of new infections, said Shamika Ravi, a Brookings senior fellow and a former member of the Prime Minister's Economic Advisory Council.

"Their current strategies (contact tracing, testing and containment) are ineffective," she said.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020...mp-50000-strict-lockdown-200507092406918.html
 
A train in India crashed into a group of migrant workers walking along the railroad tracks on to their way back to their home state on Friday, killing at least 16.

The railway ministry has launched a probe into the incident.

According to railway officials, the workers were walking towards their home state Madhya Pradesh after they lost their jobs due to the Covid-19 lockdown. Most public transportation has already been cancelled due to the lockdown.

These workers had started from Jalna to go to Bhusawal (both in Maharashtra) - a distance of 157 kilometre - and had planned to go to their native places Umariya and Shahdol in Madhya Pradesh, which is about 850 kilometres away.

According to railways, they left Jalna at 7 pm on Thursday and initially walked on road and later onto the track towards Aurangabad. After walking for about 36 kilometres, these workers started feeling tired and sat on the track between Karnad and Badnapur railway stations for taking some rest. They gradually went into deep sleep.

It was at 5.22 am that the approaching goods train ran over these labourers, the railways ministry said in a statement. The driver tried to stop the train but couldn’t do so in time, it added.

There were 14 people on the track, two adjacent to the track and three away from it, the railways said.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi condoled the deaths on Twitter. “Extremely anguished by the loss of lives due to the rail accident in Aurangabad, Maharashtra. Have spoken to Railway Minister Piyush Goyal and he is closely monitoring the situation. All possible assistance required is being provided,” he tweeted.

Amid the nationwide lockdown, thousands of migrant workers stranded in several other cities have been on an unending toil to return to their native places on foot.

The interstate bus service, passenger, mail and express train services have been suspended since March 24.

The Railways has started running ‘Shramik Special’ trains to transport the stranded migrants to their native places since May 1. Till Thursday railways has run 201 ‘Shramik Special’ trains.

https://www.hindustantimes.com/indi...were-killed/story-kdJHMdZU3T2ubxXNdnUKYL.html
 
Under lockdown and far apart, Sushen Dang and Keerti Narang went online to say their marriage vows — and pulled off a spectacular Indian wedding complete with thousands of guests and raucous Bollywood dancing.

In a country famous for lavish weddings that last for days, the young couple are among a growing number modifying their marriage ceremonies under a virus lockdown that has limited public gatherings.

Also read: Webinars the new ‘in thing’ during lockdown

Eager to go ahead with the arranged marriage on the auspicious date selected for them by a priest, the pair turned to the internet to tie the knot.

“We never imagined that even our online wedding would be so grand,” Dang, a 26-year-old data analyst who is based in Toronto, told AFP of the April 19 event.

“A hundred guests joined in our celebration on the app. We live-streamed the ceremony on Facebook which was watched by another 16,000 people.”

The nuptials spanned the country.

Dang, decked out in a turban and traditional sherwani kurta, logged on from Mumbai on the coast of the Arabian Sea, while Narang — in her red bridal finery — joined from Bareilly in northern Uttar Pradesh state that borders Nepal.

The priest overseeing proceedings chanted hymns as he sat before a ritual fire at his home in Raipur in the central state of Chhattisgarh, with guests logging in from Delhi, Gurgaon and the southern tech hub of Bangalore.

There were minor hiccups — some elderly family members were accidentally unmuted and pets photo-bombed screens.

But the energy levels remained high and the occasion was capped off with a fun Bollywood-style dance performance by their cousins.

The wedding video posted on Facebook has so far garnered nearly 260,000 views, making the newly-weds “feel like celebrities”.

Wedding blues
The spread of the coronavirus and the nationwide lockdown took place as India's wedding season was in full swing.

In western Rajasthan state alone some 23,000 weddings meant to coincide with the Hindu Akshaya Tritiya festival on April 26 were called off due to the pandemic.

More than 10 million weddings are held annually in the nation of 1.3 billion people, with the marriage industry estimated to be worth some $40-$50 billion, according to advisory firm KPMG.

The sector — like the rest of the economy — is reeling from the impact of the virus, with planners, caterers and decorators among those who have incurred huge losses.

“We thought, 'why don't we be the flag-bearers and drive weddings online?',” said Adhish Zaveri, marketing director at a matrimonial website Shaadi.com which facilitated Dang and Narang's wedding.

“A wedding is probably the most important day of somebody's life [...] and we thought we have to make it as special and close to a real wedding as possible,” he told AFP.

Online nuptials are among a string of weddings in India that have gone ahead amid the lockdown — with some unusual variations.

One couple in Uttar Pradesh said “I do” inside a police station after more conventional venues like banquet halls, hotels and temples were all ordered closed during the lockdown.

And in Madhya Pradesh in central India, a bride and groom, their faces covered by masks, exchanged garlands — a key ritual in a Hindu wedding — with the help of bamboo sticks in a no-contact ceremony.

Home nuptials

Zaveri said the significantly cheaper online ceremonies could become an option for couples amid the uncertainty about how long the pandemic is going to last.

Couples are charged less than 100,000 Indian rupees ($1,300) for the virtual services, Zaveri said, adding 12 more such weddings were in the pipeline.

To give the online ceremonies a professional touch, make-up artists and sari-draping experts are hired to help the bride, while a folk singer is engaged to serenade the guests.

All participants are sent logins and passwords so that strangers can't gatecrash the event.

Kirti Agrawal — who married her beau Avinash Singh Bagri on April 14 on the balcony of their relative's flat as friends and family watched on a videoconferencing app — said the digital approach appealed to her.

“Their (groom's) family had planned a guest list of 8,000 to 10,000,” Agrawal told AFP.

“I didn't say that I am not a fan of big, fat weddings. But when I heard about the wedding-from-home idea, I was very happy.”

https://www.dawn.com/news/1555502/indias-lavish-weddings-go-online-in-virus-lockdown
 
As India continues to fight the spread of coronavirus, a few 'successful' efforts at containing the infection have been touted as 'models', celebrated and mimicked across the country. But experts say such premature euphoria could be dangerous.

The northern city of Agra, home to the iconic Taj Mahal, was one of the first Indian cities to report a case of coronavirus back in early March.

While the city continued to report infections through the month, it did slow down the spread. Soon, the "Agra model" was trending on social media as the federal government heaped praise on their efforts.

But things rapidly changed - in April, cases started to double as the early success started unravelling. Their model had relied heavily on strictly containing affected areas and isolating suspected cases. But as the virus spread to newer areas, authorities had to look for other options, like aggressive testing.

The city now has more than 600 cases - more than any other city in Uttar Pradesh state, and the much-feted Agra model disappeared from the news cycle.

It just goes to prove such early celebrations involve "great risks", warned one prominent virologist.
 
The Indian Navy has begun evacuating more than 700 citizens from the Maldives as part of the country's big repatriation mission to bring thousands of Indians stuck abroad home.

Earlier today, more than 300 Indians returned on two flights from Dubai and Abu Dhabi as the country kicked off its evacuation efforts.

Over the next week, 64 flights will go to 12 countries to bring back nearly 15,000 Indians.

Eventually, about 200,000 Indians will be brought back, report local media.

If successful, this would be India's biggest evacuation mission since 1990, when it rescued 170,000 civilians from Kuwait during the Gulf War.
 
(Reuters) - India’s fuel demand dipped 45.8% in April from a year earlier, as a nationwide lockdown and travel curbs to combat the spread of novel coronavirus eroded economic activity.

Consumption of fuel, a proxy for oil demand, totalled 9.93 million tonnes - its lowest since 2007, government data showed on Saturday.

State fuel retailers in India sold 50% less refined fuel in the first two weeks of April than the same time a year earlier as the country came to a standstill due to the lockdown that was put in place on March 24.

The government last week extended the lockdown until May 17, with some relaxations in lower-risk areas, although travel by air, rail and metro and inter-state movement of people by road was still banned.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) in its latest report said India’s annual fuel consumption will decline 5.6% in 2020 compared with growth of 2.4% forecast in its March report.

Consumption of diesel, which is widely used for transportation as well as for irrigation needs in India, was down about 55.6% year-over-year at 3.25 million tonnes.

Sales of gasoline, or petrol, dropped by 60.6% from a year earlier to 0.97 million tonnes.

Cooking gas or liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) sales rose about 12.1% to 2.13 million tonnes, while naphtha sales fell 9.5% to 0.86 million tonnes.

State-retailers sold 21% more LPG in the first fortnight of April from a year earlier. India is providing free cooking gas cylinders to the poor for three months to June to help them weather the impact of the lockdown.

Sales of bitumen, used for making roads, slumped 71%, while fuel oil use dipped 40% in April.

However, the country’s fuel demand is set to recover with easing restrictions on industrial activity and transport in areas that have contained the spread of coronavirus, oil minister Dharmendra Pradhan said earlier this week.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...tent&utm_medium=trueAnthem&utm_source=twitter
 
A major operation to repatriate thousands of Indian nationals who are stranded overseas is underway, with more than 60 flights due to bring people back from 12 countries over the next week.

In the early hours of Saturday, returnees arrived from UAE, while on Friday, hundreds of people were brought back from Bahrain, Singapore, Bangladesh and Saudi Arabia, the Indian Express newspaper reported. A naval ship has also set sail, repatriating nearly 700 Indian citizens stuck in the Maldives.

About 15,000 Indians are due to return on Air India flights, though this figure is expected to increase significantly over the coming weeks and months. Embassies abroad have received hundreds of thousands of applications from Indian nationals who want to travel home.
 
India is testing 80k to 85k samples/day for the past few days. As per ICMR we have capacity to test 125k to 130k samples/day.

Few states in India are testing well but few are testing very less. Interesting thing is it is one of the richest states or states with best healthcare that are testing less.

As per 09th May data...

States.JPG

Community transmission cases (cases with no source) have started in India (which ICMR doesn't admit till now) with less percentage though. All these red marked states in above diagram need to step up testing for finding out community transmission cases.

They just can't relax saying we have best healthcare or we have best systems blah blah blah & hence no testing is required Examples:states like telangana, kerala, west bengal, Maharashtra etc.,
 
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Indian authorities used drones and fire engines to disinfect the city of Ahmedabad on Saturday, AFP reports.

The city of 5.5 million people in Narendra Modi’s home state has become a cause for concern, accounting for 343 of the almost 2,000 coronavirus deaths reported nationwide and almost 10% of India’s cases. Other cities in Gujarat state have also been badly hit.

Locals watched from their balconies as drones sprayed disinfectant while fire engines and other vehicles toured the empty streets sending out clouds of the cleaning agent.

The acting chief administrator, Rajiv Gupta, said all zones of the city would be disinfected.

India has been in the grip of the world’s biggest lockdown since 25 March, and measures were tightened in Ahmedabad on Friday because of the accelerated spread of the virus.

Hundreds of paramilitaries kept people off the streets and virtually all stores have been closed for at least a week.

The virus is spreading quickly in other cities including the capital, Delhi, and the finance hub of Mumbai.

While the number of fatalities is low compared with the US and the worst-hit European nations, health specialists say India’s pandemic curve may not peak until June and July.

Shamika Ravi, an economic adviser to the government, said on Saturday that the “infection is way ahead of our knowledge” in Gujarat and Maharashtra, which includes Mumbai, because authorities were not carrying out enough tests.
 
IndianHero said:
India is testing 80k to 85k samples/day for the past few days. As per ICMR we have capacity to test 125k to 130k samples/day.

Few states in India are testing well but few are testing very less. Interesting thing is it is one of the richest states or states with best healthcare that are testing less.

As per 09th May data...

View attachment 100858

Community transmission cases (cases with no source) have started in India (which ICMR doesn't admit till now) with less percentage though. All these red marked states in above diagram need to step up testing for finding out community transmission cases.

They just can't relax saying we have best healthcare or we have best systems blah blah blah & hence no testing is required Examples:states like telangana, kerala, west bengal, Maharashtra etc.,
Click to expand...
Look at tests per million of Maharashtra and West Bengal. So called big and modern states of India. :inti
 
Bhaag Viru Bhaag said:
Look at tests per million of Maharashtra and West Bengal. So called big and modern states of India. :inti
Click to expand...


Yes exactly ! These states have densely populated states like mumbai , kolkota with millions of population in each & hence they have to test even more. May be they r giving/looking for excuse an saying 'well we have mega populated cities & hence not possible to test more'

If that's case then how come delhi (state & city) tops the list even though it is also one of the mega populated one ?
 
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Maharashtra is being mismanaged. Mylabs and Serum Institute are both based in Pune, so for Maharashtra its not even logistical bottlenecks, that say a WB can claim. Shiv Sena and NCP are busy hoarding the supplies/money from the central government and asking them for more aid. I dont expect the situation to improve unfortunately. When i speak to folks at home, they tell me how there is no real enforcement on the lockdown and its all left to the participation of the public, which for a densely packed city like Mumbai will never be successful.
 
Massive crowds of people wait in line in India after restrictions on shops selling liquor were eased

2b8f57cb-514a-4110-96cd-ce2584214771.jpg
 
pillionrider said:
The real-estate lobby bullied him. Basically - keep these disposable lot here so they can work for us. But we are not going to announce any package or special living conditions for them.
Click to expand...

In the meantime, I'm also getting spammed by BJP fans praising some airlift operations as if it was another surgical strike.

The BJP is the most anti-poor government in decades, and yet, the uneducated and poor have been so brainwashed, they will continue to support them even as they fall dead.
 
IndianHero said:
India is testing 80k to 85k samples/day for the past few days. As per ICMR we have capacity to test 125k to 130k samples/day.

Few states in India are testing well but few are testing very less. Interesting thing is it is one of the richest states or states with best healthcare that are testing less.

As per 09th May data...

View attachment 100858

Community transmission cases (cases with no source) have started in India (which ICMR doesn't admit till now) with less percentage though. All these red marked states in above diagram need to step up testing for finding out community transmission cases.

They just can't relax saying we have best healthcare or we have best systems blah blah blah & hence no testing is required Examples:states like telangana, kerala, west bengal, Maharashtra etc.,
Click to expand...

Our Public health care system is a well oiled machine running perfectly with whatever little resources available. It’s free and affordable to even the poorest section of our society. Irrespective of who ruled the state, be it congress or communist, there was always some effort to do some good for the health system. That credit goes to the people more than any political party tbh. That’s one of the reason why we attain the best health milestones in the country.

This is yesterday’s Hindu newspaper article:

In a significant achievement, Kerala has brought its infant mortality rate (IMR), down from 10 to the single digit of 7 (per 1,000 live births), according to the latest Sample Registration System (SRS) bulletin.

This means that Kerala has achieved the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) target for IMR reduction, set at eight for the year 2020. The State’s IMR for rural areas is 9 and for urban areas, 5.

The data, released by the Office of the Registrar General of India, with the reference year of 2018 put the State far ahead of the national average of 32.

Kerala is also the only State to have achieved the single digit IMR of 7 amongst bigger States, the closest being Delhi with an IMR of 13.

https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/kerala/state-brings-down-infant-mortality-rate/article31537707.ece

Regarding Covid management, we don’t have any special treatment here, whatever success we gained is only because of our containment strategy which we began from January onwards. Another thing is transparency in data and people’s trust on this Public health system, which successfully controlled the Nippah outbreak too. No doubt that our testing should be increased but it should be done more wisely and optimally. Considering the influx of NRK’s from other hot spot states and countries, we need to test, trace and treat them more asap.

The 26 000 ASHA Workers- the foot soldiers who work in the field collecting information from everyone, they play the biggest role in our containment along with the doctors, nurses, police staff etc. They are one of the biggest pillar of health system.

https://indianexpress.com/article/facebook-stories-of-strength-2020/governing-the-crisis/the-foot-soldiers-of-keralas-covid-19-battle-25000-women-who-wont-overlook-any-detail-6394687/
 
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Kerala should not be put along with Maharashtra, West Bengal, Telangana for the Coronavirus management. Even UP has done a much better job than these 3 states :facepalm:
 
[MENTION=143690]IndianHero[/MENTION] We also had a movie called “Virus” after the deadly Nippah outbreak of 2018. I think it’s in Amazon prime now.


These little things play a long role in creating awareness among people.:)
 
kaayal said:
...
No doubt that our testing should be increased but it should be done more wisely and optimally. Considering the influx of NRK’s from other hot spot states and countries, we need to test, trace and treat them more asap.
..
Click to expand...

Off course there is no denying the fact kerala has one of best (if not the best) healthcare systems in our country. But what worries me community transmission has started in India unfortunately.

If you remember in this very thread we were discussing on how tamilnadu controlled or flattened the curve to some extent then this koyembedu wholesale market cases came up & now they have 600 to 700 cases/day. Off course their testing per million is good & hence more cases. They have identified this market as 'super spreader' with rigorous testing.

Even new york has one of the world's best healthcare system but we all know what happened there. My point is having best hospitals or best health care systems doesn't stop these community transmission cases only solution is test,trace & isolate as this is 'novel' coronavirus.

Maharastra, andhra pradesh, tamil nadu, gujarat etc., have cases with no sources ! I don't know the ground realities in kerala so I can't comment much. Let's hope/pray that kerala doesn't have much community transmission cases.
 
India’s train network - one of the world’s largest - will “gradually” restart operations from Tuesday as India eases its coronavirus lockdown, as the number of cases passed 60,000 with more than 2,000 deaths.

Some 30 train journeys - 15 pairs of return trips - will run from the capital New Delhi to other cities including Mumbai, Bangalore and Chennai, Indian Railways said late Sunday.

“Indian Railways plans to gradually restart passenger train operations from 12th May, 2020... Thereafter, Indian Railways shall start more special services on new routes,” the railways ministry added in a statement.
 
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">People of India have always overwhelmingly hailed PM Modi’s leadership. He has always remained connected with the people.<br><br>Here are some snapshots of a survey on his popularity rating during COVID... <a href="https://t.co/ZgE4qtrHR2">pic.twitter.com/ZgE4qtrHR2</a></p>— BJP (@BJP4India) <a href="https://twitter.com/BJP4India/status/1259151063904591873?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 9, 2020</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

<img src="https://i.imgur.com/PZ3MjrT.jpg" width="500">

7.9%... out of 10? :virat
 
The Indian Railway ministry says it will partially restart passenger train services from 12 May, as the government eases restrictions imposed due to the pandemic.

Special trains will run from Delhi to a number of cities next week and services will then be gradually increased.

The government stopped air, train and bus services with four hours notice in late March, stranding millions of people across the country.

Officials say it will be mandatory for the passengers to wear masks and undergo screening at departure terminals.
 
Abdullah719 said:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">People of India have always overwhelmingly hailed PM Modi’s leadership. He has always remained connected with the people.<br><br>Here are some snapshots of a survey on his popularity rating during COVID... <a href="https://t.co/ZgE4qtrHR2">pic.twitter.com/ZgE4qtrHR2</a></p>— BJP (@BJP4India) <a href="https://twitter.com/BJP4India/status/1259151063904591873?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 9, 2020</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

<img src="https://i.imgur.com/PZ3MjrT.jpg" width="500">

7.9%... out of 10? :virat
Click to expand...

BJP and its supporters are a different breed :)
 
Five migrant workers have died in India while trying to get home amid a travel lockdown.

The workers had been hiding in a truck carrying mango crates when the vehicle overturned on a highway late on Saturday.

The deaths came just two days after 16 other workers were killed by a freight train in Maharashtra.

The fatalities have put a spotlight on strict travel restrictions in India, which have hit the country's poorest hardest.

The country's lockdown, implemented suddenly in March, left millions of migrant workers stranded away from their homes.

As we reported earlier, a partial train service is set to resume from 12 May.
 
Abdullah719 said:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">People of India have always overwhelmingly hailed PM Modi’s leadership. He has always remained connected with the people.<br><br>Here are some snapshots of a survey on his popularity rating during COVID... <a href="https://t.co/ZgE4qtrHR2">pic.twitter.com/ZgE4qtrHR2</a></p>— BJP (@BJP4India) <a href="https://twitter.com/BJP4India/status/1259151063904591873?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 9, 2020</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

<img src="https://i.imgur.com/PZ3MjrT.jpg" width="500">

7.9%... out of 10? :virat
Click to expand...

What kind of foolishness is this,even during crisis they are concerned about the popularity 🤦
 
India to 'gradually' restart rail operations in lockdown easing

One of the world's largest train networks will "gradually" restart operations from Tuesday as India eases its six-week coronavirus lockdown.

The move comes after the government faced widespread criticism for its treatment of migrant workers, who have been forced to walk hundreds of kilometres from cities to reach their homes as factories and businesses have been shut due to the lockdown.
 
Extend Lockdown...Eid celebrations can wait: Imams in WestBengal

In a letter addressed to chief minister Mamata Banerjee, the Bengal Imams' Association, a body of several imams and muezzins from mosques across the state, has appealed that the current lockdown should be extended till the end of May to achieve the “desired result” of containing the virus. “Eid celebrations can wait.

https://m.timesofindia.com/city/kol...y-can-wait-imams/amp_articleshow/75665899.cms
 
India reports more Coronavirus cases than Spain in the past 24 hours - total surges past 70,000
 
Gurugram, India - In the weeks since March 25, when the coronavirus lockdown in India came into effect, strains of "Bharat Padhe Online" (India studies online) have been intensifying, with a push for a shift to virtual learning to address the disruption in schooling due to the epidemic.

However, Safeena Bano*, a domestic worker who lives in a rented room in Gurugram, said she is not aware of such a campaign. Her daughters, Firoza*, 13, and Noor*, 11, live with her in-laws in Balihara, a village in West Bengal state's Dakshin Dinajpur district.

Safeena could not make it home before the lockdown. She rings her mother-in-law's basic phone to chat with her daughters every evening. The girls have been bored.

"A day before the school shut down and exams got cancelled, their teachers handed over some question papers and told them to work on it at home. There has been no other communication from school," said Safeena over the phone.

Other than promoting online content on applications such as Diksha and e-Pathshala, India's Ministry of Human Resource Development has said it is working on dissemination of lessons through radio and television. State education departments are creating their own models based on local needs.

In Delhi state, for example, there is a staggered approach. Interventions until grade 8 are not internet-based.

Since 68 percent of students in higher grades have smartphones, some online classes have begun, said Binay Bhushan of the directorate of education in the Delhi government.

But many Indian educationists are worried over a digital movement in education threatens to cut off a sizeable number of children.

Only about a third of the students will have access to any online content. It could be difficult for parents, especially in rural and marginalised communities, to understand that content, said Maharshi Vaishnav, chief of staff at Educate Girls NGO.

Although about 78 percent of India's 1.3 billion population has mobile phones, teledensity in rural areas is around 57 percent, according to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India.

"These numbers are not conducive to virtual classrooms for the majority," said Nishant Baghel, director of technology innovations at Pratham, a learning organisation that has developed digital, radio and SMS-based programmes to be delivered via village administration in 10 Indian states.

Even in homes with a smartphone, usually owned by the father, it may not be available to the children for learning, he adds.

At Kumars'* home in Uttar Pradesh's Ghaziabad city on the outskirts of New Delhi, three teenagers vied for a single smartphone.

The siblings have worked out a schedule. Nidhi, 15, begins the day with an hour of coaching over a WhatsApp video call.

Her younger brother gets the phone next, and then her older brother gets busy with applications to colleges.

"It's difficult to manage on one phone, but we have to make it work," said Nidhi.

In a patchy digital landscape, hundreds of thousands of newly created school-run WhatsApp networks to dole out school work are sweeping teachers, parents and children into a tangle.

In the village of Satlewa in Rajasthan's Rajsamand district, it has posed a worry.

Since only half the parents have a smartphone, the rest wonder about being left out of the network, reported Arjun Singh, a community worker.

As one goes deeper into the interior of the country, the divide widens considerably.

In villages like Kanjapani in Barwani district of Madhya Pradesh, with no internet connectivity, owning a smartphone does not guarantee a ticket to education.

Team Balika group's volunteer Shivani Choyal tagged along with healthcare officials visiting homes to encourage them to revise lessons and play educational games.

"Many of the girls are busy in the fields or with home chores," she said.

Even in major urban centres, it is a gap difficult to bridge.

At The Door Step School in Mumbai, director Bina Sheth Lashkari said teachers have been able to connect with 25-30 percent of parents, most of them daily wage earners.

There are fears that once the lockdown is over, many students will drop out, as migrant communities rush back to their villages.

Internet now a class marker
Previously, access to a functioning school was a class marker for millions of children. Since the lockdown, access to the internet may be one, too.

"Casual use of data without a serious understanding of relevant landscape leads to serious exclusion," noted Baghel, adding that barely 13 percent homes in India have desktops and laptops.

Moreover, without interactive platforms, will there be real "learning"?

Eleven-year-old Haridwar city's resident Ridhima Pandey does not believe so. Her eyes have turned red and itchy as she strained to read a chapter from a textbook on her mother's phone.

Before bed, her mother sprinkled a few drops of rose water to soothe her eyes.

"Some of my friends have online classes, while I have to read PDF files of chapters on my own. I feel like I'm working, not learning," she said.

Many of her neighbours without smartphones have had to rely on others' phones to finish school assignments, she said.

Stark disparity
The digital disparity is becoming starker as more schools begin to adopt virtual tools.

Across the three schools she runs in Tirunelveli in the southern Tamil Nadu state, Pushpalata Pooranan, director of Pushpalata Vidya Mandir Schools, has closely observed the extremities of this divide.

In the international school, everyone has access to technology. In the CBSE (central curriculum) school, it drops to 60-65 percent. In the state board school, none of the students can access online content, she said.

Ameeta Mulla Wattal, principal of New Delhi's Springdales School, calls the divide "a digital abyss". The school has distributed phones to the children from economically weaker sections.

"But how much can I teach on a phone?" she asked.

According to the officials, students in the colleges are better off.

Professor Anil Sahasrabudhe, chairman of All India Council for Technical Education said the number of users accessing online courses has swelled to 7.5 - eight million.

For the 20 percent students who may not have access, the AICTE has arranged for 500 colleges to provide access to the internet to any student living nearby, even if she or he is not a student of that institution, he adds.

With uncertainty over when students can go back to the classroom, educationists are thinking about remedial measures.

Bhushan said there is a proposal before the HRD Ministry to reduce the syllabus by 30 percent across all grades this year. The reduced syllabus of grade 12 should be the basis of entrance exams for next year, he adds.

Wattal's prescription rings with urgency. "All stakeholders have to go into disaster mode and think of something as fast as a vaccine," she said.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020...eal-india-digital-divide-200428075114733.html
 
NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Tens of thousands of people have booked out seats on Indian trains that are due to restart on Tuesday after a near seven-week lockdown, raising concerns of spreading the coronavirus in the absence of social distancing.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government is starting to pull back from one of the world’s tightest lockdowns of 1.3 billion people that has left millions out of work and stranded in cities far from home while infections keep rising.

State-run railways restarted services from New Delhi to 12 cities including Mumbai, Chennai and Bengaluru, and within an hour of opening, all seats were booked out online, a spokesman said.

“The trains will run full. Reservations have been made for 54,000 passengers,” said another official.

Tuesday will only be a small opening for the notoriously overcrowded rail system that in normal times moves more than 20 million people a day.

Passengers will have to wear masks throughout the journey and will be screened before they board the train, the railway ministry said. They also have to sign up for a government-backed contact tracing app on their phones, the ministry said.

The move comes as India’s coronavirus infections reached 70,756, adding 3,604 over the previous day. At the current rate, India is set to surpass the number of infections in China in less than a week. China’s case toll now stands at 82,918.

Deaths from COVID-19 stood at 2,293 for India and 4,633 for China.

India’s numbers are still small compared to those of the United States, United Kingdom and Italy, but many state leaders are wary of opening up rail, road and air networks for fear of an exponential rise in infections that would overwhelm the limited medical facilities.

During a video conference with Modi to decide the way out of the lockdown that has battered the economy, the chief minister of eastern Bihar state, Nitish Kumar, said restarting rail services was a “mistake”.

His state was already seeing a surge in infections as migrant workers from India’s big cities such as Mumbai and Delhi reached home, he told the meeting, according to a state official.

The chief minister of the southern state of Telangana, K Chandrasekhar Rao, said restarting trains from Delhi, one of the coronavirus hotspots, was risky.

“It will not be possible to conduct tests on everyone. It is also difficult to put all those who travelled by train under quarantine,” he said.

But pressure has been building on Modi to ease restrictions from political leaders, businesses and people whose livelihoods have been destroyed by the shutdown.

Modi is due to address the nation later in the day.
 
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Indian trains start rolling again despite virus surge

India's enormous railway network tentatively ground back to life as a gradual lifting of the world's biggest coronavirus lockdown gathered pace even as new cases surged.

Restrictions have been steadily eased, however, particularly in rural areas, and some Indian trains - on a network that normally carries more than 20 million passengers a day - resumed on Tuesday.

More than 54,000 tickets for an initial 30 services sold out online within three hours on Monday, reports said.

Two trains left New Delhi on Tuesday afternoon with 2,300 people on board. Others left different cities including Mumbai.
 
Inspector Munish Pratap Singh was about to finish his shift around 22:00 when a helpless father called him with an unusual request.

"Could you please get a birthday cake for my son? It's his birthday and he is really sad," the father said.

Insp Singh is not used to dealing with such requests, but these are no ordinary times. All shops were shut in his area, but he called a baker he knew and - luckily - a cake was available.

"The happiness on the boy's face made everything worthwhile. My team and I forgot how tired we were," he says.

Insp Singh is not alone among his colleagues with such a simple act of kindness.

Many other officers in India have delivered birthday cakes to children and the elderly, given food to the homeless and provided essential medicines.
 
Indian state to release half of inmates

The western state of Maharashtra will release nearly half of its prisoners - 17,000 out of 35,000 - in a bid to curb the spread of Covid-19 in its jails.

On Tuesday, the state's home minister said that Arthur Road jail in the state's capital, Mumbai, had recorded at least 180 positive cases.

“This measure has been taken to ensure that social distancing norms are observed in every jail of the state and spreading of Covid-19 is prevented," Anil Deshmukh told local media.

He added that those being released would be out on temporary bail - and that those jailed for "serious crimes" including murder, rape, and financial fraud, would stay in prison.

India has reported more than 70,000 cases, including 2,293 deaths. Maharashtra is one of the worst-affected states in the country, with more than 24,000 infections
 
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has announced a 20 trillion rupee ($264bn; £216bn) economic package to help the country cope with its prolonged coronavirus lockdown.

In a televised address on Tuesday, Modi said the package, which is equivalent to 10% of India's gross domestic product, will help people who have lost jobs and businesses hit by the shutdown.

"The package will also focus on land, labour, liquidity and laws. It will cater to various sections including cottage industry, medium and small enterprises, labourers, middle class, industries, among others," he said.

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman is expected to announce further details at a press conference later on Wednesday.

India has more than 70,000 confirmed virus cases among its 1.3bn population and is expected to pass China's total number of infections within a week.
 
Delayed testing led to sudden spike in cases

The death of a female COVID-19 patient due to delay in testing has made the State government go back on its decision of not testing all primary contacts of coronavirus patients.
She was the wife of a COVID-19 patient from P&T Colony, Dilsukhnagar, who contracted the infection from the dialysis unit of a corporate hospital. She was not tested initially even as her husband turned positive.
She eventually got sick and died of the infection, after which authorities tested the family members — all 10 tested positive for the virus. Incidentally, a famous film artiste-turned-politician’s son was also among those infected from this family.
This is just one sample case of delayed testing. In fact, what appeared as an unexpected spurt in the number of COVID-19 cases in the GHMC area on Monday, was not all that unexpected for the health authorities

More at: https://www.thehindu.com/news/citie...-to-sudden-spike-in-cases/article31568242.ece
 
clearly I have been saying for the past few days that states which test less are prone to have asymptomatic carriers bcoz community transmission has started in some (if not many) states in India.

Hence at this moment the strategy should be testing more and more ppl.
 
As Indians await details of a huge coronavirus relief package Prime Minister Narendra Modi has announced to jump start the economy, the outbreak in the financial capital of Mumbai and elsewhere in Maharashtra state is starting to overwhelm hospitals and slums, complicating any economic recovery plan.

About a third of India's 71,865 confirmed virus cases, and nearly 40 percent of its 2,415 deaths, have been reported in Maharashtra, the coastal state in the centre of the country that is home to Bollywood, a huge agriculture industry and India's largest stock market.

The Sensex has sunk about 25 percent from its year-to-date high in January.

Health experts have praised Modi's government for enforcing a stringent weeks-long lockdown that has helped the nation of 1.3 billion so far avoid the kind of catastrophic rates of illness and death that have beset the United States, Britain and elsewhere.

'Cost of the lockdown'
But as India's lockdown restrictions are eased, whether the country can steer its economy back on track will largely depend on how Maharashtra rebounds, experts say.

"It's a huge impact," Gurcharan Das, the former head of Procter & Gamble in India, said of the state. "I think the default position should be to open, and you only lock down by exception, because eventually I fear that the cost of the lockdown will be far greater in lives even than the disease."

India's lockdown, imposed on March 25, is set to at least partially end on May 18. Some restrictions on manufacturing, agriculture and self-employment were lifted on May 4 to ease the burden on the poor and informal sector workers who comprise the majority of India's workforce.

Indian Railways also partially reopened to run special trains carrying migrant workers stranded in the lockdown who fled India's big cities, including Mumbai, for their village homes.

At least some of the passengers carried the coronavirus with them, infection spikes in the states of Bihar and Orisha corresponding with their arrival show.

In an address on Tuesday night, Modi said the government would spend more than $260bn to revive the economy. The government described some details of the package, including income tax cuts, liquidity injections for cash-strapped companies and government-backed bank loans.

It also said it would bar foreign companies from competing in bidding for government contracts of up to $26m, in a nod to the self-reliance and protectionist policies outlined in Modi's address.

Ritu Dewan, vice president of the New Delhi-based Indian Society of Labor Economics, said the government should do more to address the needs of India's poor.

"People are out of money, what about them? Where will they go? People need cash at this moment," she said.

Signs of distress
Places like Maharashtra are showing signs of distress.

The state government has ordered all private hospital doctors to spend at least 15 days treating COVID-19 patients at public hospitals, where infection rates among healthcare workers are growing.

The government also released half of its inmate population amid outbreaks in prisons.

And health officials are struggling to contain the spread of the virus in Mumbai, one of the world's most densely populated cities.

Anushaa Vijay, 31, an architect in Mumbai, said the pandemic has had a transformative effect.

"The virus has bought the liveliest city I know of to a standstill," she said.

But the narrow lanes of Dharavi, one of Asia's biggest slums, are still crowded. Prashant Pawar's neighbour, Mukund Patil, a 58-year-old diabetic street food vendor, developed a mild fever earlier this month. Two days later, he tested positive for the virus. Pawar tested negative.

Pawar accompanied Patil in the ambulance to Lokmanya Tilak Municipal General Hospital. By the time doctors could attend to him, Patil was dead.

The scenes inside the hospital left Pawar distressed.

"Its indoors were full of people. Very few people were wearing masks," Pawar said, adding that "at times I saw more than one patient being rested on a single bed".

The hospital, where many of the hundreds of COVID-19 patients from Dharavi have been treated, has been under scrutiny since a video emerged showing four bodies shrouded in black plastic lying next to virus patients.

A member of the hospital staff, Dr Avinash Saknure, said health facilities were "overstretched". "We are doing our best with what we have," he said.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020...dia-begins-ease-lockdown-200514063146166.html
 
India will provide free food grains to millions of migrant workers hardest hit by a weeks-long lockdown as well as offer employment under a rural jobs programme, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has said.

The government will spend 35 billion rupees ($463m) on food for nearly 80 million migrant workers over the next two months, Sitharaman told a news conference on Thursday.

The allocation is part of a 20 trillion rupees ($266bn) fiscal and monetary package to prop up the ailing economy.

Millions of workers have fled large towns and cities after they lost their jobs during the lockdown, which is aimed at curbing the spread of the novel coronavirus.

"The government is concerned about migrant workers," Sitharaman said, adding that it provided funds to the states to provide shelter, food grain and transport for migrants.

Since April, the government has spent 100 billion rupees ($1.3bn) to offer work to nearly 23 million unemployed people in rural areas under the ongoing rural job guarantee programme, she said.

The government also plans to extend a bank loan interest subsidy programme for affordable housing to rented housing for migrant workers, she said.

On Wednesday, it announced new credit lines by offering bank guarantees on loans of more than $60bn to small businesses, shadow banks and power companies.

In an address to the nation on Monday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said the package was equivalent to 10 percent of India's gross domestic product (GDP) and was meant to support workers and businesses reeling from the impact of the prolonged shutdown.

Under lockdown since late March, India has reported more than 78,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19 among its 1.3 billion population, with over 2,500 deaths from the lung disease.

Economists said the new measures would have a limited impact on the government's fiscal spending as large parts of funding for migrant workers, farmers and small businesses was through state-run banks and financial institutions.

Nevertheless, Sonal Varma, an economist at Nomura, estimated the federal fiscal deficit is expected to touch 7 percent of the GDP in 2020-21, double an earlier estimate of 3.5 percent, mainly due to a sharp fall in revenue collection.

In April, the unemployment rate rose to 23.5 percent from 8.7 percent the previous month, data released by the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy, a Mumbai-based think-tank, showed.

Sitharaman said the street vendors and farmers would get new subsidised bank loans, and that nearly 30 million farmers had so far benefitted from a three-month moratorium on bank loans amounting to 4.22 trillion rupees ($52bn).

Economists and rating agencies expect the Indian economy could contract by up to 5 percent in the current financial year beginning April, a steep fall from earlier government estimates of 6 percent growth.
 
New Delhi: Delhi saw its highest single-day spike in coronavirus disease (Covid-19) cases so far, with 472 recorded on Thursday. The surge takes the city’s Covid-19 tally to 8,470, according to Delhi’s daily health bulletin.

Before this, the highest number of cases recorded in a single day was 448, on May 7.

Delhi breached the highest single-day spike in case numbers for the fourth time in May on Thursday. From just over 3,500 Covid-19 cases recorded till April-end, the numbers have shot up with nearly 4,500 cases being recorded in the city in just 14 days.

With lockdown curbs being relaxed after May 3 , when its second phase ended, and further easing expected after May 17, experts said they expected the number of cases to rise even further.

“The numbers will go up as more people move about. Even the lockdown has not been very effective in curtailing the spread of the infection in congested areas. If you see the slums or redevelopment colonies, there are several people living in one room. They will step out in the summers. The chance of spread owing to the use of community toilets is very high as well,” the official added.

Health care workers and patients going to hospitals continue to be another group at a higher risk of infection. “There are several health care workers and patients and their families who have visited the hospitals who are testing positive. This is still a major concern in the city,” said another district official on condition of anonymity.

At least 500 health care workers in Delhi have tested positive for Covid-19 so far.


Nine deaths recorded

Nine more deaths have been added to Delhi’s cumulative Covid-19 toll, taking the total to 115, according to the daily health bulletin released by the Delhi government. However, none of these were recorded in the last 24 hours, according to the report.

The revised toll still puts the city’s mortality rate at 1.3%.

A three-member death audit committee has been reviewing case sheets and death summaries, and adding the numbers to the daily report.

A discrepancy in the number of deaths recorded in the daily bulletin and those reported from individual hospitals was highlighted last week, after which the government instituted new standard operating procedures (SoP) for dedicated Covid-19 hospitals, asking them to report their deaths by 5pm each day or face action.

The government has also removed a hospital-wise break-up of deaths from its bulletin.

“The committee is working on clearing the backlog of cases within this week, after which there shouldn’t be an unusual spike in the number of deaths. The new SoP has certainly helped in speeding up the process,” said a senior official from the Delhi government.
 
India will overtake china by the end of today - with more active cases - another worrying day 3,942-new cases. Worrying signs ahead, looks like this is your peak period -been like this for past week
 
finalfantasy7 said:
India will overtake china by the end of today - with more active cases - another worrying day 3,942-new cases. Worrying signs ahead, looks like this is your peak period -been like this for past week
Click to expand...

We still have not reached the peak yet. The numbers are doubling in every 11 days now. Most probably the peak will be on June-July. Meanwhile the testing capacity appears to be almost saturated now.
 
finalfantasy7 said:
India will overtake china by the end of today - with more active cases - another worrying day 3,942-new cases. Worrying signs ahead, looks like this is your peak period -been like this for past week
Click to expand...

China numbers are fudged so not worried about that.

The R0 is holding steady below 1.5. so thats a silver lining.
 
kaayal said:
We still have not reached the peak yet. The numbers are doubling in every 11 days now. Most probably the peak will be on June-July. Meanwhile the testing capacity appears to be almost saturated now.
Click to expand...


Yes ur right, we haven't reached our peak , I believe we might reach it august (with july being monsoon season)


ICMR says india has potential to test 130k to 150k (even 200k per day) provided states like telangana, kerala, west bengal , maharastra etc,. test more aggressively to check for community transmission cases.

But these state govts' give a build up that we have advanced healthcare & hence we don't need to test.

This mentality has to change & look to test aggressively for community transmission cases as community transmission has started in many states in India.

These states have very low tests per million compared to states like delhi, andhra pradesh, tamilnadu.
 

Community transmission may have begun in Hyderabad

As the lockdown restrictions are being phased out one by one, unspoken are the fears about community transmission of COVID-19 across the city. Indications of Stage-III community transmission are already palpable in a few areas, though authorities have not admitted it so far.

Jiyaguda is one such locality where no single reason for the rampant spread could be zeroed in so far by the authorities. All that the officials could do was to make surmises based on the patients’ movements.

With nine containment zones, close to 70 persons testing positive for coronavirus, and seven deaths, Jiyaguda is one among the worst affected areas in the city. Very recently, 27 persons who are the kin of COVID-19 index cases from here tested positive in a single day.

A person who worked in a paan shop at Somajiguda was also diagnosed positive. He and three others were surmised to have contracted the virus from a Karwan mosque where they went to pray. “People seemed to have also got infected at a public sector bank’s local branch where they went to withdraw money deposited by the government,” an official said under the condition of anonymity.



Evidence of Stage-III transmission comes from other localities too. A fresh case surfaced in Dhobighat, Yakutpura where the infection trail is missing. The patient in question went to a corporate hospital in Jubilee Hills with fever, where his samples were collected and sent for testing. His daughter, too, contracted the virus from him.


More at : https://www.thehindu.com/news/citie...ission-may-have-begun/article31576914.ece#top
 
In hyderabad ppl visiting mosques, banks r contacting virus , so community transmission might have begun.

This is the reason we should test aggressively to find out the extent of community transmission
 
A speeding bus has run over and killed six Indian migrant workers as they tried to walk home, police said, days after the death of a group of migrants who fell asleep on a railway line shocked the country.

Five others were injured in the accident late on Wednesday, which came as tens of thousands of distressed migrants try to get home after work - and after most public transport vanished overnight when India imposed a lockdown in late March.

The men were walking from the northern state of Haryana to their home state of Bihar hundreds of miles away, Abhishek Yadav, a senior police official, said on Thursday.

Neither the labour nor the road transport and highway ministries responded to the Reuters news agency's requests for comment.

Dozens of migrant workers have fallen sick or died on their way home, either from fatigue or in accidents, underscoring the extreme risks the poor have been exposed to under measures to stop the spread of the coronavirus.

On Thursday, India's Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said it was up to individual states to take care of the migrants, including providing them with freshly cooked meals.

"As regards migrants who are walking, it is very, very touchy and there is a tug at my heart when I watch this," she said at a news conference as she announced a package of aid to help migrant workers.

"But it is up to state governments - from where they are moving to where they are moving - to make those provisions."

Facing public pressure, the government has organised special trains and buses to transport migrant labourers home. On Thursday, it said more than a million people had reached their home states by train.

But Anindita Adhikari of the Stranded Workers Action Network, which helps such migrant labourers, said many were still trying to get home on foot because registering for the transport was too difficult.

"How you get a seat on these trains, informing people about train schedules to prevent crowding and increasing the frequency of trains - these things are needed," she said.

The latest incidents came nearly a week after 16 migrant workers, who had fallen asleep on a railway track due to exhaustion from walking, were crushed by a train in Maharashtra.

Small bundles of food, footwear and other belongings were scattered on the tracks after the accident.

Another eight migrant labourers were killed and about 50 injured on Thursday when the truck they were travelling home in collided with a bus.

Two migrant workers and a baby were killed in a similar accident a day earlier.

Sitharaman said the government would spend 35 billion rupees ($463m) on food for nearly 80 million migrant workers for the next two months and offer employment under a rural jobs programme.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020...igrant-workers-walk-home-200514180843016.html
 
In less than 20 days, the novel Coronavirus numbers in India have gone up by more than three times. On Thursday, as nearly 4,000 new infections were discovered, the total number of confirmed cases had crossed 82,000. On April 25, this number was less than 27,000.

Only about 53,000 of them were, however, ‘active’, meaning the rest, over 28,000, had recovered from the disease, and were unlikely to infect others.

As was being expected, Tamil Nadu over took Gujarat on Thursday, to become the state with the second-highest caseload. Though Tamil Nadu has shown a slight slowdown in the last two days, it reported 447 new cases on Thursday which was enough to take it past Gujarat. Tamil Nadu now has 9,674 confirmed cases, a large number of them having been contributed by the Koyambedu market cluster in Chennai, while Gujarat, where 324 more people tested positive on Thursday, has 9,592.

Source Indianexpress
 
MenInG said:
A speeding bus has run over and killed six Indian migrant workers as they tried to walk home, police said, days after the death of a group of migrants who fell asleep on a railway line shocked the country.

Five others were injured in the accident late on Wednesday, which came as tens of thousands of distressed migrants try to get home after work - and after most public transport vanished overnight when India imposed a lockdown in late March.

The men were walking from the northern state of Haryana to their home state of Bihar hundreds of miles away, Abhishek Yadav, a senior police official, said on Thursday.

Neither the labour nor the road transport and highway ministries responded to the Reuters news agency's requests for comment.

Dozens of migrant workers have fallen sick or died on their way home, either from fatigue or in accidents, underscoring the extreme risks the poor have been exposed to under measures to stop the spread of the coronavirus.

On Thursday, India's Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said it was up to individual states to take care of the migrants, including providing them with freshly cooked meals.

"As regards migrants who are walking, it is very, very touchy and there is a tug at my heart when I watch this," she said at a news conference as she announced a package of aid to help migrant workers.

"But it is up to state governments - from where they are moving to where they are moving - to make those provisions."

Facing public pressure, the government has organised special trains and buses to transport migrant labourers home. On Thursday, it said more than a million people had reached their home states by train.

But Anindita Adhikari of the Stranded Workers Action Network, which helps such migrant labourers, said many were still trying to get home on foot because registering for the transport was too difficult.

"How you get a seat on these trains, informing people about train schedules to prevent crowding and increasing the frequency of trains - these things are needed," she said.

The latest incidents came nearly a week after 16 migrant workers, who had fallen asleep on a railway track due to exhaustion from walking, were crushed by a train in Maharashtra.

Small bundles of food, footwear and other belongings were scattered on the tracks after the accident.

Another eight migrant labourers were killed and about 50 injured on Thursday when the truck they were travelling home in collided with a bus.

Two migrant workers and a baby were killed in a similar accident a day earlier.

Sitharaman said the government would spend 35 billion rupees ($463m) on food for nearly 80 million migrant workers for the next two months and offer employment under a rural jobs programme.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020...igrant-workers-walk-home-200514180843016.html
Click to expand...

Its like everyone is out to get these poor migrants, what is going on :(
 
kaayal said:
We still have not reached the peak yet. The numbers are doubling in every 11 days now. Most probably the peak will be on June-July. Meanwhile the testing capacity appears to be almost saturated now.
Click to expand...

what are the rough expectations on new cases for your peak in june/july ?
 
cricketjoshila said:
China numbers are fudged so not worried about that.

The R0 is holding steady below 1.5. so thats a silver lining.
Click to expand...

doesnt the R0 have to be below 1.0 for the virus to stop spreading and which it will naturally decrease - im sure i heard a doc say this on bbc
 
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">I am proud to announce that the United States will donate ventilators to our friends in India. We stand with India and <a href="https://twitter.com/narendramodi?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@narendramodi</a> during this pandemic. We’re also cooperating on vaccine development. Together we will beat the invisible enemy!</p>— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1261368451555360774?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 15, 2020</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
 
Abdullah719 said:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">I am proud to announce that the United States will donate ventilators to our friends in India. We stand with India and <a href="https://twitter.com/narendramodi?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@narendramodi</a> during this pandemic. We’re also cooperating on vaccine development. Together we will beat the invisible enemy!</p>— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1261368451555360774?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 15, 2020</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Click to expand...

Some Indians will not like this tweet #Donate
 
Abdullah719 said:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">I am proud to announce that the United States will donate ventilators to our friends in India. We stand with India and <a href="https://twitter.com/narendramodi?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@narendramodi</a> during this pandemic. We’re also cooperating on vaccine development. Together we will beat the invisible enemy!</p>— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1261368451555360774?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 15, 2020</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Click to expand...

I think this tweet is incorrect with US's economy plumeting India is the sole supa powa of the world now. What Trump really meant to say was India is going to donate ventilators to the USA.
 
finalfantasy7 said:
what are the rough expectations on new cases for your peak in june/july ?
Click to expand...

No idea. There is a lot of parameters to consider like the monsoons etc and how they will affect the virus spread. One thing is sure, It’s going out of our control especially in the 3 major states. Soon other states will also follow the suit. I fear we will be top in few weeks because of the rampant community spread and relaxation of the lockdown rules.

This is how our cases are increasing as of now.

10000 13th April
20000 21st April
30000 28th April
40000 3rd May
50000 6th May
60000 9 th May
70000 11th May
80000. 14th May
 
Tens of thousands of impoverished migrant workers are on the move across India, walking on highways and railway tracks or riding trucks, buses and crowded trains in blazing heat, the AP reports.

Some are accompanied by pregnant wives and young children, braving threats from the coronavirus pandemic.

They say they have been forced to leave cities and towns where they had toiled for years building homes and roads after they were abandoned by their employers casualties of lockdown to stop the virus from spreading.

The government and charities have tried to set up shelter homes for them but their numbers are simply overwhelming, leaving them little choice but to head on a perilous journey home.

Last week, a train crashed into a group of tired workers who fell asleep on the tracks while walking back home in western Maharashtra state, killing 16. On Saturday, at least 23 labourers died in northern India when a truck they were travelling in smashed into a stationary truck on a highway.
 
NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India’s total novel coronavirus cases rose to 85,940 on Saturday, taking it past China, where the pandemic originated last year, though a strict lockdown enforced since late March has reduced the rate of contagion.

State leaders, businesses and working class Indians have called on Prime Minister Narendra Modi to reopen the battered economy, but the government is expected to extend the lockdown, which would otherwise expire on Sunday, though with fewer restrictions.

So far the death rate in India appears far better, according to health ministry data, with 2,752 fatalities reported, compared with China’s 4,600. The toll in the United States, United Kingdom and Italy is much higher.

Health Minister Harsh Vardhan was also encouraged by the slowing rate of infection, as it now takes 11 days for the number of cases to double, whereas before the lockdown cases were doubling every 3 1/2 days.

“Clearly the situation has improved due to lockdown. We have utilised this period of lockdown to accelerate public health measures such as case detection, contact tracing, isolation and management of cases,” Vardhan said.

Indian officials say the low death rate could be because a majority of people infected with the virus were either asymptomatic or had mild symptoms and that the vast shutdown imposed early on had helped avoid a major catastrophe.

A third of the infections are from Maharashtra, with Mumbai the worst hit, followed by Tamil Nadu, Gujarat and Delhi.

These are also the most important economic centres of the country, complicating the government’s task as it tries to re-open without triggering a big spurt in infections.

“India is still in the growth phase, since total cases are still rising. Active cases are growing at 3.8% (daily) - and this needs to fall to 0% and decline subsequently for the country to recover overall,” Shamika Ravi, a Brookings expert and former member of the Indian Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council, said.

One area of concern has been India’s low testing in relation to its large population, public health officials say. The country has ramped up testing since the beginning of April to 100,000 this week, but with 1.3 billion people on a per capita basis it is trailing far behind other major countries such as the United States, the United Kingdom and Italy.

https://www.reuters.com/article/hea...ass-china-but-contagion-slowing-idUSKBN22S08F
 
LUCKNOW, India (Reuters) - A truck crammed with migrant labourers trying to reach their distant homes amid a nationwide lockdown crashed in northern India on Saturday, killing at least 23 and injuring 35.

The accident occurred before daybreak, when the truck collided with another truck that was parked by a roadside eatery in the Auraiya district of Uttar Pradesh state, Abhishek Singh Meena, the top district official said.

“The rescue operation is almost complete and 23 people have been killed in the accident,” Singh told Reuters, adding that 20 people had suffered serious injuries, while the rest had minor wounds.

The migrants mainly hailed from the states of Bihar, Jharkhand and West Bengal.

India locked down its 1.3 billion citizens almost seven weeks ago in an attempt to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus, sparking a crisis for the hundreds of millions of Indians that rely on daily wages to survive.

With no work - and little public transport - many urban migrants attempting to return to their home villages have set out on gruelling journeys on foot, or hitching rides in the back of trucks.

On May 13, six migrants walking to their homes in Bihar were crushed to death by a speeding truck in Muzaffarnagar, also in Uttar Pradesh. Three others sustained serious injuries. The driver was arrested.

On Friday, UP’s Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath ordered bureaucrats and police officers across the state to arrange buses and taxi cabs to ferry migrants back to their hometowns. No one should walk, cycle or travel by trucks, he said.

Coronavirus infections in India crossed 85,000 on Saturday, surpassing China, though officials credited the lockdown for slowing the contagion. [L4N2CX0ZJ]

Indian state and federal governments have provided additional funds to feed and house migrants, as well as some special buses and trains.
 
It might still be early days, but several states seems to be experiencing a second wave of novel Coronavirus outbreak. States like Kerala, Himachal Pradesh, Assam, Goa had either stopped reporting new cases, or were reporting very few. In the last couple of days, however, there has been a noticeable rise in these states.

For over a month, Goa did not have a single case. All the seven people, found infected in the last week of March, had recovered and gone back home. In the last two days, eight new cases have been discovered, and all of them are people returning to the state from other places. Similarly, all 41 patients in Himachal Pradesh had recovered by the first week of this month, but in the last one week or so, 34 new cases have been detected.

Coronavirus cases India, Coronavirus India, Covid deaths in India, Covid second wave expected, India china infections, Express explained, Indian express India Coronavirus Cases: Assam has reported over 40 cases in the last one week, after most of its earlier lot of 45 patients had recovered.

Kerala had not completely stopped reporting new cases, but these were mostly in single digits, and on some days not at all. On Thursday, however, Kerala detected 26 new cases that was the highest since March 30. Another 16 cases were added on Friday. In the last three days, 52 cases have been detected in the state, which now has 576 confirmed infections. Again, it is the people returning from other places who are adding to the numbers. In Kerala’s case, 22 among those returning from the Gulf countries in the latest round of evacuations of Indians stranded abroad have tested positive. Some returning from other states have also tested positive.


State Total Cases New Cases Deaths
Maharashtra 29,100 1,576 1,068
Tamil Nadu 10,108 434 71
Gujarat 9,932 340 606
Delhi 8,895 425 123
Rajasthan 4,635 207 125
Madhya Pradesh 4,595 169 239
Uttar Pradesh 4,057 155 95
West Bengal 2,461 84 225
Andhra Pradesh 2,157 22 48
Punjab 1,932 -3 32

Assam has reported over 40 cases in the last one week, after most of its earlier lot of 45 patients had recovered.

As people still being on the move, these numbers are likely to rise in the coming days. Returning working population has been behind the rapid increase in cases in states like Odisha, Bihar, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh as well. That is the reason that several states have been reluctant to allow more trains to be run.

Meanwhile, on Friday, the total number of confirmed cases in India went past that of China where the disease has originated. China, which has a total of 84,649 cases, has all but stopped adding new cases for the last two months now, while India has been detecting almost 4,000 cases every day for the last few days. China had reached 80,000 cases on March 1, but after that new infections slowed down dramatically, almost coming to an abrupt halt. Just about 4,500 cases have been detected in the two and a half months since then. Incidentally, leaving aside the three infections discovered in Kerala in late January, India had detected its first Coronavirus case well after China had crossed the 80,000 figure.

By Friday, India’s Coronavirus numbers had reached 85,681. Of these, at least 31,000 had recovered. The number of deaths in the country is now over 2750.

Interestingly, the total number of cases in Punjab has shown an actual decrease on Friday. This is because about 30 personnel of the Railway Protection Force who had tested positive in Ludhiana have been transferred out of the state’s accounts into the central pool in which other cases like those of evacuees and BSF personnel is also counted. The state had 1935 cases till Thursday, and on Friday, after making the accounting adjustments, this number came down to 1932. This is the first time that such adjustments has led to an actual decrease in a state’s numbers. Before this, a downward revision in Maharashtra’s testing numbers had been made about a week ago to account for the fact that several samples from other states had also been tested in Maharashtra.

https://indianexpress.com/article/e...second-wave-as-india-overtakes-china-6412435/
 
MenInG said:
LUCKNOW, India (Reuters) - A truck crammed with migrant labourers trying to reach their distant homes amid a nationwide lockdown crashed in northern India on Saturday, killing at least 23 and injuring 35.

The accident occurred before daybreak, when the truck collided with another truck that was parked by a roadside eatery in the Auraiya district of Uttar Pradesh state, Abhishek Singh Meena, the top district official said.

“The rescue operation is almost complete and 23 people have been killed in the accident,” Singh told Reuters, adding that 20 people had suffered serious injuries, while the rest had minor wounds.

The migrants mainly hailed from the states of Bihar, Jharkhand and West Bengal.

With no work - and little public transport - many urban migrants attempting to return to their home villages have set out on gruelling journeys on foot, or hitching rides in the back of trucks.

On May 13, six migrants walking to their homes in Bihar were crushed to death by a speeding truck in Muzaffarnagar, also in Uttar Pradesh. Three others sustained serious injuries. The driver was arrested.
Click to expand...
Another feather in 56" cap. Bhakts though would still be crying hoarse about his fake ratings...

Bloody heartless!
 
There have been so many avoidable deaths which can be directly attributed to the idiotic and senseless decisions of this regime. But no, his approval ratings are highest in the world, so nothing else matters.
 
MenInG said:
LUCKNOW, India (Reuters) - A truck crammed with migrant labourers trying to reach their distant homes amid a nationwide lockdown crashed in northern India on Saturday, killing at least 23 and injuring 35.

The accident occurred before daybreak, when the truck collided with another truck that was parked by a roadside eatery in the Auraiya district of Uttar Pradesh state, Abhishek Singh Meena, the top district official said.

“The rescue operation is almost complete and 23 people have been killed in the accident,” Singh told Reuters, adding that 20 people had suffered serious injuries, while the rest had minor wounds.

The migrants mainly hailed from the states of Bihar, Jharkhand and West Bengal.

India locked down its 1.3 billion citizens almost seven weeks ago in an attempt to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus, sparking a crisis for the hundreds of millions of Indians that rely on daily wages to survive.

With no work - and little public transport - many urban migrants attempting to return to their home villages have set out on gruelling journeys on foot, or hitching rides in the back of trucks.

On May 13, six migrants walking to their homes in Bihar were crushed to death by a speeding truck in Muzaffarnagar, also in Uttar Pradesh. Three others sustained serious injuries. The driver was arrested.

On Friday, UP’s Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath ordered bureaucrats and police officers across the state to arrange buses and taxi cabs to ferry migrants back to their hometowns. No one should walk, cycle or travel by trucks, he said.

Coronavirus infections in India crossed 85,000 on Saturday, surpassing China, though officials credited the lockdown for slowing the contagion. [L4N2CX0ZJ]

Indian state and federal governments have provided additional funds to feed and house migrants, as well as some special buses and trains.
Click to expand...

At least 24 migrant workers trying to return home during a nationwide lockdown have been killed in a crash between two lorries in northern India.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-52688899
 
An army of Indian migrant workers heads home

Tens of thousands of impoverished migrant workers are on the move across India, walking on highways and railway tracks or riding in trucks, buses and crowded trains in blazing heat.

Some are accompanied by pregnant wives and young children, braving threats from the coronavirus pandemic.

They say they have been forced to leave cities and towns where they had toiled for years building homes and roads after they were abandoned by their employers — casualties of a nationwide lockdown to stop the virus from spreading.

The government and charities have tried to set up shelters for them, but their numbers are simply overwhelming, leaving them little choice but to head on a perilous journey home.

Last week, a train crashed into a group of tired workers who fell asleep on the tracks while walking back home in western Maharashtra state, killing 16. On Saturday, at least 23 laborers died in northern India when a truck they were traveling in smashed into a stationary truck on a highway.

“I don’t know what the future holds for me,” said Hari Ram, a 28-year-old mason who set out for his village in central India this week on foot, hoping to hitch a ride on the way.

“One thing is certain: If I die, I will die in my home. I will never set foot in New Delhi again,” he said.

Dasrath, 32, who uses one name, said “Indian politicians only come to us for votes during elections. We are facing a very difficult situation now — nobody is helping us.”

Half of India’s population earns less than $3 a day. Over 90% of the workforce is employed in the informal sector, without access to significant savings or social protection benefits such as paid sick leave or insurance, according to the World Bank.

The migrant workers say they can return to farming and also take up jobs like building roads, water harvesting in drought-hit areas and construction of animal shelters under a government program that guarantees 100 days of employment a year in rural India for 200 rupees ($2.65) per person per day.

Their exodus is causing worries for India’s top consumer goods companies, which fear a possible labor shortage as they resume production.

https://apnews.com/8724ff07dcbe2bff...n=SocialFlow&utm_medium=AP&utm_source=Twitter
 
The Viper said:
An army of Indian migrant workers heads home

Tens of thousands of impoverished migrant workers are on the move across India, walking on highways and railway tracks or riding in trucks, buses and crowded trains in blazing heat.

Some are accompanied by pregnant wives and young children, braving threats from the coronavirus pandemic.

They say they have been forced to leave cities and towns where they had toiled for years building homes and roads after they were abandoned by their employers — casualties of a nationwide lockdown to stop the virus from spreading.

The government and charities have tried to set up shelters for them, but their numbers are simply overwhelming, leaving them little choice but to head on a perilous journey home.

Last week, a train crashed into a group of tired workers who fell asleep on the tracks while walking back home in western Maharashtra state, killing 16. On Saturday, at least 23 laborers died in northern India when a truck they were traveling in smashed into a stationary truck on a highway.

“I don’t know what the future holds for me,” said Hari Ram, a 28-year-old mason who set out for his village in central India this week on foot, hoping to hitch a ride on the way.

“One thing is certain: If I die, I will die in my home. I will never set foot in New Delhi again,” he said.

Dasrath, 32, who uses one name, said “Indian politicians only come to us for votes during elections. We are facing a very difficult situation now — nobody is helping us.”

Half of India’s population earns less than $3 a day. Over 90% of the workforce is employed in the informal sector, without access to significant savings or social protection benefits such as paid sick leave or insurance, according to the World Bank.

The migrant workers say they can return to farming and also take up jobs like building roads, water harvesting in drought-hit areas and construction of animal shelters under a government program that guarantees 100 days of employment a year in rural India for 200 rupees ($2.65) per person per day.

Their exodus is causing worries for India’s top consumer goods companies, which fear a possible labor shortage as they resume production.

https://apnews.com/8724ff07dcbe2bff...n=SocialFlow&utm_medium=AP&utm_source=Twitter
Click to expand...

This is so sad to read. I hope these poor workers return home safely.
 
One has to feel pity on these migrants. Unfortunately few of these migrant workers arriving from other states have covid-19 and they r being tested upon arrival.These migrants r not being allowed to their villages by their villagers due to fear of virus spread.

In my state andhra there r 150 covid-19 migrants. Today migrants who arrived on train had 21 covid 19 cases among them !


<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="te" dir="ltr"><a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/COVIDUpdates?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#COVIDUpdates</a>: రాష్ట్రంలో గత 24 గంటల్లో (9AM-9AM)<br>* 9,628 సాంపిల్స్ ని పరీక్షించగా 48 మంది కోవిడ్19 పాజిటివ్ గా నిర్దారింపబడ్డారు. <br>* 101 మంది కోవిడ్ నుండి కోలుకొని సంపూర్ణ ఆరోగ్యం తో డిశ్చార్జ్ చేయబడ్డారు.<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/APFightsCorona?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#APFightsCorona</a> <a href="https://t.co/8HOO8GDLKd">pic.twitter.com/8HOO8GDLKd</a></p>— ArogyaAndhra (@ArogyaAndhra) <a href="https://twitter.com/ArogyaAndhra/status/1261538587847192576?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 16, 2020</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>


P.S : Please click on translate tweet to convert to english
 
IndianHero said:
One has to feel pity on these migrants. Unfortunately few of these migrant workers arriving from other states have covid-19 and they r being tested upon arrival.These migrants r not being allowed to their villages by their villagers due to fear of virus spread.

In my state andhra there r 150 covid-19 migrants. Today migrants who arrived on train had 21 covid 19 cases among them !


<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="te" dir="ltr"><a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/COVIDUpdates?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#COVIDUpdates</a>: రాష్ట్రంలో గత 24 గంటల్లో (9AM-9AM)<br>* 9,628 సాంపిల్స్ ని పరీక్షించగా 48 మంది కోవిడ్19 పాజిటివ్ గా నిర్దారింపబడ్డారు. <br>* 101 మంది కోవిడ్ నుండి కోలుకొని సంపూర్ణ ఆరోగ్యం తో డిశ్చార్జ్ చేయబడ్డారు.<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/APFightsCorona?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#APFightsCorona</a> <a href="https://t.co/8HOO8GDLKd">pic.twitter.com/8HOO8GDLKd</a></p>— ArogyaAndhra (@ArogyaAndhra) <a href="https://twitter.com/ArogyaAndhra/status/1261538587847192576?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 16, 2020</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>


P.S : Please click on translate tweet to convert to english
Click to expand...

Sometimes the car you are in runs over a few puppies on its way; one feels their pain of course, but the car must move on, and the puppies must die, what can a man do?

3264598D-D03E-4E8E-B8E7-F9786FCBB5CC.jpeg
 
MP2011 said:
There have been so many avoidable deaths which can be directly attributed to the idiotic and senseless decisions of this regime. But no, his approval ratings are highest in the world, so nothing else matters.
Click to expand...


Some people say that the middle class is what keeps the nation afloat. If they die you will lose the nation. To save our senior middle class citizens, we have put our poor at risk. In other words the poor all 35 crores of them is expendable. The middle class is not. Don't even think about the rich. It explains why we have chosen to cut loose the poorest and weakest among us in a time of danger like this.
 
Mumbai's hospitals close to collapse in war on virus

Packed morgues, bodies in wards, patients forced to share beds and medical workers run ragged: Mumbai's war against coronavirus has pushed the Indian city's hospitals to breaking point.

The huge Lokmanya Tilak Municipal General Hospital, better known as Sion, has become a byword for the stunning failure of Mumbai - home to billionaires, Bollywood and slums - to cope with the pandemic.

With space at a premium, and relatives too afraid or unable to claim their dead because they are themselves in quarantine, disposal of coronavirus corpses is not easy, doctors say. But dealing with the sick is much harder.
 
kaayal said:
Sometimes the car you are in runs over a few puppies on its way; one feels their pain of course, but the car must move on, and the puppies must die, what can a man do?

View attachment 101026
Click to expand...


In Andhra pradesh, migrants who walked thousands of kilometres r not allowed to enter their villages by their villagers.
Along with centre states too r to blame for this crisis. Most of the times they r also partners in crime with the centre.
When things wrong state govt.s simply blame centre. Centre blames respective states.


For ex: In march/april, few states were complaining about lack of testing kits to them. Now when PCR kits r available these states don't test much but give a show off saying 'v have amazing healthcare, how dare u question us' blah blah etc,. Such states r like telangana, kerala, maharastra, west bengal etc,.These type of states test way too less than states like andhra pradesh, tamilnadu, delhi, rajasthan (remember rajasthan has congress govt.) etc,.


As u can see in above tweet andhra pradesh tested 9628 samples in 24 hours I bet kerala, telangana, west bengal combined wouldn't have tested 9000+ in 3 days !

Then how will they detect for any community transmission cases ??
 
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152
Aang_The_last_airbender
Aang_The_last_airbender
BouncerGuy
Life term for man involved in the doctor’s rape and murder case in Kolkata, India [Post Updated #138]
2
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137
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4K
FearlessRoar
FearlessRoar
FearlessRoar
Insurgents in Nagaland lose patience with the Indian government – is another headache around the corner for India?
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31
Views
812
Aang_The_last_airbender
Aang_The_last_airbender
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