Coronavirus outbreak: Is India still fighting COVID-19 under local transmission phase?

New Delhi, Apr 07: With exactly a week left for the 21 day nation-wide coronavirus containment lockdown to conclude, the Union Health Ministry on Monday said that India has now moved away from the local transmission phase and stepped in to the "large outbreaks amenable to containment phase".

As the number of doubled in 96 hours with the infection spreading to nearly 300 of the 736 district across the country, a protocol has been set by the Union Health Ministry, terming it as "Containment plan for large outbreaks".

This protocol, it includes "re-defining the area of operation, active observation for cases and contacts in the identified geographic zone, expanding laboratory capacity for testing all suspected COVID-19 cases, operationalise surge capacities created for isolation to hospitalise and manage all suspect or confirmed cases."

With the implementation of social-distancing becoming the basic step to avoid getting in contact with the coronavirus, the government is empowered to increase the capacity of the present coronavirus dedicated hospitals and bring in private hospitals and augment laboratory testing capacity.

It is reportedly said that the documents also list the hospital facilities to be provided to COVID-19 patients. The documents further reported that people who are suspected/confirmed COVID-19 cases would be hospitalised and kept in isolation.

The Health Ministry is also expected to reduce its operations in those areas,"if no secondary laboratory confirmed COVID-19 case is reported from the geographic quarantine zone for at least four weeks after the last confirmed test has been isolated and all contacts have been followed up for 28 days."