14,792 Coronavirus Cases In India, 488 Deaths: 10 Points

Indian Navy has reported its first set of COVID-19 cases. Twenty-one sailors in Mumbai have tested positive. A massive operation to trace people who may have come in contact with them is on. The sailors were staying in the residential accommodation facilities of INS Angre - a shore-based depot that provides logistical and administrative support to naval operations of the Western Naval Command.

In Mumbai's Dharavi - Asia's largest slum - the number of coronavirus cases has crossed the 100-mark. Fifteen new cases were reported on Friday, which takes the total to 101. The city, with 2,073 coronavirus cases, is the worst affected city in the country; Maharashtra is the worst hit state. The city of 1.2 crore has been under a complete lockdown since the last month.

The recovery rate that indicates the number of people who have successfully fought off the illness is improving, Union Health Ministry has said. The rate stood at 13.85 per cent this morning, an improvement over 13.06 per cent on Friday, Thursday's 12.02 per cent, Wednesday's 11.41 per cent and Tuesday's 9.99 per cent. On Friday, 260 patients were declared cured from COVID-19 and discharged from hospitals. On Thursday, 183 were discharged from hospitals after they recovered.

Indian scientists are testing a multi-purpose vaccine that has proven to be effective against leprosy and boosts immunity in hosts to see if it can help tackle the coronavirus, the chief of country's largest public-funded research institution told NDTV on Friday. "With the approval of the DCGI (Drug Controller General of India), we have begun tests on the MW vaccine that has been successfully used against leprosy," Dr Shekhar Mande, Director General of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), said.

Kerala is making the case for a 28-day isolation period after a man in Kannur, who returned from Dubai and showed no symptoms of coronavirus, tested positive nearly a month later. At present, a 14-day quarantine period is the norm.

Amid a countrywide lockdown, health officials and policemen are being targeted. In Bihar, four such cases of attack on health workers were reported across the state within 24 hours on Thursday. Two of them took place in Bihar Sharif, the hometown of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar. On Wednesday, a team of doctors and other medical staff were attacked in in neighbouring Uttar Pradesh's Moradabad, when they went to take primary contacts of a COVID 19 patient who died, to a quarantine facility. PM Modi has repeatedly urged people across the country to support those providing essential services in doing their jobs.

India may touch its peak of coronavirus cases in the first week of May, after which the number will decline, sources in the Home Ministry have said.

After continuing a strict lockdown till April 20, the districts that are not virus hotspots will be allowed to resume some industrial, construction and manufacturing activities as the government attempts to restart the economy and move towards a gradual exit from the nationwide shutdown to prevent the infection from spreading rapidly.

Rajasthan, Punjab and Bihar, which were the first few states to announce lockdowns, have managed to avoid sharp jumps in positive cases compared to states that went for partial curbs at first like Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat and Maharashtra.

The World Health Organization said on Friday that many countries would likely follow China in revising up their death counts once they start getting the coronavirus crisis under control. Wuhan, where COVID-19 originated in December, on Friday admitted missteps in tallying its death count, abruptly raising the city's count by 50 percent -- following growing world doubts about Chinese transparency over the outbreak.