Coronavirus: Delhi health minister Satyendar Jain says community spread present

New Delhi, July 20: Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jain, who has recovered after testing coronavirus positive, said that community spread of the deadly virus is "present".

"There is spread in community, now it's very technical to say either it's local or community spread. Source of many positive patients remains unknown after test. Let's leave the technical battle on Centre to decide over community spread," said Jain after recovering from Covid-19.

Echoing similar views, earlier, the Indian Medical Association (IMA) also opined that community spread has started and the situation is pretty bad.

Speaking to ANI, Dr V K Monga, the Chairman of IMA Hospital Board of India, 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. There are so many factors connected with it but overall this is now spreading to rural areas. This is a bad sign. It now shows a community spread."

The statement is significant as the central government has been maintaining that community transmission of Covid-19 has not started yet in India.

"In Delhi, we were able to contain it, but what about interior parts of the country in Maharashtra, Karnataka, Kerala, Goa, Madhya Pradesh (which may be the new hotspots)?" Dr Monga, was quoted as saying.

On Sunday, Delhi added 1,211 new Covid-19 cases, the lowest count in over a month and 31 deaths in the last 24 hours taking the national capital's coronavirus tally to 1,22,793.