Coronavirus brings India to a standstill
Raveesh Kumar, the spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs announced on Thursday that the India-EU summit that was to happen this month will be rescheduled seeing the outbreak of Coronavirus. He said, “India and the EU decided to reschedule Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Brussels in view of advice by health authorities due to the coronavirus outbreak”.
All the primary schools in Delhi have been shut down till the 31st of March in view of the fear of the rapid spread of coronavirus. Delhi Education Minister Manish Sisodia said, “As a precautionary measure to prevent the possibility of spread of COVID-19 amongst our children, the Delhi government has directed the immediate closure of all primary schools (government/aided/private/MCD/NDMC) till March 31″.
An advisory has also been issued by the Union Health Ministry to all the schools advising them to avoid large gathering of students and staff at the premises. It has also asked the schools to monitor any student or members of staff who have had a travel history to the COVID-19 infected places in the last 28 days.
The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in India has reached 29. This number includes the 14 Italians who have been shifted to the Medanta Hospital in Gurugram. Paytm, which is an e-commerce payment site said that on Wednesday one of its employees in its Gurugram Branch tested positive. He had just returned from Italy after a vacation. After this Paytm has asked its employees to work from home for a few days.
Telangana has allocated Rs 100 Crore for the prevention and management of the possible coronavirus breakout. The private hospitals have been directed to report the cases immediately. They have also designated three hospitals in order to isolate the patients.
So far, there are 15 labs in India for testing coronavirus. Dr. Harsh Vardhan, the Union Health Minister said,” Nineteen will be made operational soon.” As of now, the samples of the coronavirus patients are being tested in the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) in Delhi, Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR)’s laboratories at Alappuzha, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, and Mumbai, and the National Institute of Virology (NIV), Pune.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal have said that will not be celebrating the festival oh Holi or have the Holi Milan gathering. The Office of President Ram Nath Kovind has also confirmed that the Parliament will not have any celebrations on the occasion of Holi.
