Holi celebrations across India were subdued on Tuesday amid the coronavirus scare as Kerala reported eight new cases, Karnataka and Maharahstra reported three cases each and Rajasthan reported one fresh case. The Union Health Ministry says the number of confirmed cases has risen to 50. The fresh cases declared by the four states are being retested for confirmation, and if taken into account, will take the number of coronavirus cases in India to 62. Amid spike in number of patients in Kerala over the last few days, state health minister KK Shailaja on Tuesday said hiding one's travel history would be considered a crime. "According to Public Health Act, people hiding their travel history, which can lead to the spread of the infectious disease, is a crime," she told reporters. Two of the eight new cases in Kerala are parents of a three-year-old boy who tested positive for Novel Coronavirus or COVID-19 in Kochi on Monday. The family had recently returned from Italy without allegedly revealing their travel history to officials.
Here are the top ten developments on this big story:
Fifteen more people tested positive for coronavirus on Tuesday-- eight in Kerala and three each in Karnataka's Bengaluru, Maharashtra's Pune and one in Rajasthan's Jaipur, said the state authorities. This came a day after eight new cases were reported on Monday - one each in Bengaluru, Delhi, Kerala, Uttar Pradesh, Jammu and Punjab and two in Pune.
On Tuesday, Holi celebrations were low-key in many parts of the country as people avoided large gatherings. Last week, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah and several other politicians had said they would avoid celebrations as experts have advised against "mass gatherings to avoid coronavirus spread".
India has intensified border control to combat the Covid-19 outbreak. All the visas and e-visas granted on or before March 11 to nationals of three more coronavirus-affected countries -- France, Germany and Spain - have been suspended. Earlier, the government had suspended visas and e-visas for nationals of Italy, Iran, South Korea, Japan and China. Italy has reported the maximum deaths outside China, where the outbreak originated in December.
In Jammu and Kerala, movie theatres will remain closed till March 31. In Kerala, all public events for this month have also been suspended, authorities said.
Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan on Tuesday called up health ministers of Delhi, Haryana, Kerala, Telangana, Karnataka, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Punjab, Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh as well as Lt Governors of Ladakh, and Jammu & Kashmir to confirm the status of the COVID-19 affected patients kept in isolation centres in hospitals, the health ministry said.
Fifty-eight Indians were airlifted on Tuesday from Iran, one of the countries worst-hit by the outbreak, as the central government started evacuating hundreds of citizens stuck in the country. "Mission completed. On to the next," Foreign Minister S Jaishankar tweeted.
The Manipur government has closed all border entry points with Myanmar. The entry of foreigners from these border checkpoints is banned.
UN economists have warned that the raging COVID-19 outbreak could cost the global economy between $1.0 and $2.0 trillion this year and called on governments to ramp up spending to mitigate its impact.
On Monday, billions of dollars were wiped off global markets amid the coronavirus scare. Domestic stock markets crashed with benchmark indices slumping more than 6 per cent in their biggest single-day fall in at least 10 years, amid a selloff in global markets.
The novel coronavirus outbreak that surfaced in China's Wuhan in December last year has claimed over 4,000 lives and affected over a lakh people worldwide. The infectious disease spreads through contact with respiratory droplets spread during coughing and sneezing, doctors say. Besides keeping contact to a minimum with an infected person, the preventive measures include frequent washing of hands and use of hand sanitisers. Fresh tissues should be used while sneezing and coughing and then discarded, to ensure the virus does not spread.
