India Third Worst-Affected By COVID-19, Govt Say No Community Transmission, Here’s All You Need To Know

India has witnessed a record single-day surge of 24,879 COVID-19 cases taking the caseload to 7,67,296 on Thursday. With this, India overtakes Russia to become third worst-hit nation. However, the government maintains that there is no community spread.

Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Delhi, Karnataka, Telangana, UP and Andhra Pradesh are states that have contributed around 75 per cent of the total cases. The death toll climbed to 21,129 with 487 new fatalities, the updated data at 8 am showed. The number of recoveries stands at 4,76,377,while there are 2,69,789 active cases of coronavirus infection in the country.

“During our discussions today, experts again stated that there is no community transmission in India. There may be some localised pockets where transmission is high but as a country, there’s no community transmission,” said Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan while addressing a press conference.

Harsh Vardhan also emphasised that India is a country with the second-highest population in the world and despite this, the cases per million are 538, while the world average is 1,453.

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But experts believe that Mumbai is already in the ‘stage 3’ or community spread.

What Is Community Spread?

Community transmission or spread is said to be taking place when someone gets the virus without any known contact with a sick person.

According to Dr. Chandrakant S. Pandav – Former Professor & Head of Centre for Community Medicine, AIIMS – in easy or simple language, community spread means the spread of a contagious disease to individuals in a particular community who have no known contact with other infected individuals or who have not recently travelled to an area where the disease has any documented cases.

Dr. Salaah Qureshi – MD, Internal Medicine, AXIS Hospital, Mumbai – said that the community spread is when a person is sick with an illness with a source that cannot be elucidated. When a disease occurs in someone whose source of infection is clear like those who have travelled or health care workers, the community spread stage has not yet been reached.

“Community spread is basically the ‘stage 3’ and Mumbai seems to be already in this stage, while cannot comment on the other cities of India,” Dr. Qureshi added.