The novel coronavirus pandemic has now led to over 30,000 deaths around the world and left more six lakh infected. Several countries including the US are ramping up measures as the death toll from the virus keeps mounting. India, too, is stepping up efforts to prevent the spread of the virus that has claimed over 30 lives in India and infected over 1,100 people.
While many rumors and reports are being circulated that India is already in the community transmission phase, Union Health Ministry during a press conference on Monday clarified that "Community" word used in a government document, in a particular context. It is nothing like that we are in that stage. We presently have local transmissions. Maximum in the country has travel history and the minimum case had their contact history."
A document detailing the standard operating procedure (SOP) for transporting a suspected/confirmed patient, issued by the ministry of health and family welfare late on Sunday night, said: “This SOP is applicable to current phase of Covid-19 pandemic in India (local transmission and limited community transmission), wherein as per plan of action, all suspect cases are admitted to isolation facilities.”
Health Ministry also informed that a total of 92 new cases of COVID19 & four deaths have been reported in the last 24 hours, taking total cases to 1071 and number of deaths to 29 in India.
What Is Community Transmission:
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There are four main stages of disease outbreak. Stage I is usually when cases are imported and are not of local origin. Stage II is when there is local transmission, which means a section of people testing positive have come in contact with a positive patient having a travel history. Stage III is community transmission. Stage IV is an epidemic, when there several clusters of the infection.