The Prime Minister of India – Narendra Modi today, i.e., Sunday, July 19, 2020 spoke to Chief Ministers of 7 States and discussed the situation of Coronavirus (COVID-19) in their State.
These 7 Chief Ministers (C.M.s) included Chief Minister of Bihar – Nitish Kumar, C.M. of Assam – Sarbananda Sonowal, C.M. of Andhra Pradesh – Jagan Mohan Reddy, C.M. of Telangana – K. Chandrashekar Rao (Incumbent), C.M. of Tamil Nadu – Edappadi K. Palaniswami, C.M. of Himachal Pradesh – Jai Ram Thakur and C.M. of Uttarakhand – Trivendra Singh Rawat.
While talking to C.M.s of Assam and Bihar, Modi also discussed the situation of flood. In Assam, nearly 28 lakh people in 26 Districts have been affected by the floods. 1.18 lakh hectare of cultivable land is submerged as River Bramhaputra is flowing above the danger mark at several places across the State. A total of 48,000 people moved to 649 relief camps. There have been 79 casualties in Assam. Modi assured Sarbananda to extending support to Assam.
Taking it to twitter, Sarbananda Sonowal tweeted, “Hon’ble PM Shri @narendramodi ji took stock of the contemporary situation regarding #AssamFloods2020, #COVID19 and Baghjan Oil Well fire scenario over phone this morning. Expressing his concern & solidarity with the people, the PM assured all support to the state.”
Meanwhile, Indian Medical Association (IMA) has admitted that the continuous spike in COVID-19 cases has resulted in community spread. It is noteworthy that until now, the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare (MoHFW) has denied community spread in India.
Speaking on the occasion, the Chairman of IMA Hospital Board of India – Dr. V.K. Monga said, “This is now an exponential growth. Every day the number of cases is increasing by more than around 30,000. This is really a bad situation for the country.”
He further added that COVID-19 is spreading to the rural areas, which is a bad sign and now shows community spread. The Chief Minister of Kerala – Pinarayi Vijayan was the first person to admit that community spread has started in coastal areas of Thiruvananthapuram.
The total number of cases have surged to 10,77,618 and there have been 26,816 casualties. India again witnessed highest single-day spike in COVID-19 cases today. In the past 24 hours, India recorded 38,902 fresh and 543 casualties.
Maharashtra, the worst hit State saw a record jump of 9,518 new cases and 258 casualties. The total number of cases in Maharashtra are 3,10,455 with 11,854 casualties. Tamil Nadu, the second most hit State saw a rise of 4,979 fresh cases and 78 casualties. The State has a total of 1,70,693 cases and there have been 2,4811 casualties. Delhi is the third most hit place reporting 1,211 fresh cases and 31 casualties, taking the tally of cases to 1,22,793 and casualties to 3,628.
In other developments, Bihar Health Department has said it will arrange paid isolation facilities at hotels for frontline workers including doctors (asymptomatic patients) if they don’t have proper facilities for home isolation. R.s 4,000/- will be paid per hotel room (including food) in Patna, Rs. 3,000/- in Districts housing Mandal headquarters and Rs. 2,500/- per hotel room in other Districts.
A lot of tourists with fake COVID-19 free certificate have entered Uttarakhand. The C.M. It has directed all officers to ensure proper checking of the certificates of all tourists while also seeing that no tourist faces problems. The Policemen, who are often referred as ‘Corona Warriors’ have also been a target of the pandemic. 2,532 personnel of Delhi Police got infected with COVID-19 while dozen died due to it.
