Union Health Minister Dr. Harsh Vardhan on Sunday, showed his fear on the COVID outbreak in India which has now reached the community transmission stage, pointing out that only “10 states are reporting a maximum number of COVID cases, and the bulk of these are only from few districts.
In a long hour of a social media interaction in his weekly programme called Sunday Samvaad, he took several questions from social media users on rising coronavirus cases. He also replied to a question which asked whether India is at the phase of community spread of COVID 19.
#WatchNow the second episode of #SundaySamvaad!
Delighted to continue the wonderful conversation we started last week …
To watch the entire episode:https://t.co/MrGI3PleFN@MoHFW_INDIA @moesgoi @IndiaDST @DBTIndia @CSIR_IND @IMDWeather @rajeevan61 @Ashutos61 @RenuSwarup pic.twitter.com/KiIRSokeS0
— Dr Harsh Vardhan (@drharshvardhan) September 20, 2020
“Large outbreaks in certain districts indicate an acute spread… only 10 states are contributing 77 percent of active cases. If you see state-specific data, you will find that these cases are concentrated in few districts,” Dr. Vardhan said.
These 10 states Dr. Harsh Vardhan is talking about are Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Odisha, Telangana, Assam, Chattisgarh, Kerala and Delhi that reports the maximum number of COVID cases every day.
Therefore community transmission takes place when the source of a new infection can’t be identified.
The health minister’s comment comes a day after when Delhi health minister Satyendar Jain took a jibe at the Centre saying that center should have accepted the community transmission before and continued by saying, “Community transmission is a technical term, but with so many cases being reported from Delhi and other parts of the country, community transmission should have been accepted. But, it is only the center and scientists from the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) who can say so, however, the infection is spreading in the community,”
“I think we are stuck in technical terms here… but only the ICMR (country’s top medical research body) or the central government can comment on this,” said the Delhi Health Minister.
It has been very clear to us that over the past few weeks India has witnessed the increase in the number of new infections about more than 80,000 have been recorded every day since September 10 and the total number of active cases has crossed 10 lakh and the deaths are nearing 90,000.
Where the average increase have raised concerns of a second wave, and the health infrastructure in major cities are already under pressure.
Talking about the several predictions of Covid-19 in the country, the health minister cleared that these predictions always failed and said, “An epidemic curve has to ascend, peaking and descending phases. India is at multiple trajectories across the urban, semi-urban, and rural populations. Mathematical models that predict a peak are based on several assumptions, which may not always be accurate,”