India reports 227 new coronavirus cases in a day

NEW DELHI: India has reported 227 new Covid-19 cases in the last 24 hours. The health ministry attributed the spurt to people not following social distancing norms and not reporting symptoms. There were also 3 deaths, from Gujarat, West Bengal and Madhya Pradesh.

“This increase in few locations has been because people have not cooperated in maintaining social distancing norms and reporting symptoms,” joint secretary Lav Agarwal said.

The increase comes just a day after the ministry said that India may have flattened the curve as it went from 100 cases to 1,000 in 12 days — an average increase of 75 cases per day. The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has said that testing is being done extensively as per protocols. “We are using 36% of our testing capacity,” saidRR Gangakhedkar of ICMR.


The government has formed a Science and Technology Empowered Committee under Niti Aayog member Vinod Paul to coordinate all research and development efforts being undertaken on Covid-19. Paul and K Vijay Raghavan, principal scientific adviser to the government, would coordinate among science agencies, scientists, industries and regulatory bodies and work with department of science & technology, department of biotechnology, Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, Defence Research and Development Organisation and the Indian Institute for Science to take speedy decisions on research and development keeping in view the critical need to increase testing facilities for Covid-19.The government is actively identifying hotspots, areas reporting high number of cases or could report high cases owing to population density.

“For us, even if one case is reported from a place, we consider it a hotspot. We have our protocols that involve contact tracing and demarcating the area, Agarwal said.