India has ordered its billion-plus population to stay inside for three weeks, bringing a third of the world under lockdown due to COVID-19 pandemic.
New Delhi| Amid lockdown in most parts of India to deal with novel coronavirus threat, the Covid-19 tally has crossed the 500-mark with the first case coming to the fore from the North East on Tuesday.
Over 30 fresh cases of novel coronavirus cases have been reported from across the country on Tuesday, taking India’s tally to 560. New cases have been reported from Jammu and Kashmir, Telangana, Punjab, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh and Manipur. India’s tally also includes the death toll which has climbed to 11.
Kerala is the worst affected state in the country which has so far reported 109 cases. The total number of coronavirus cases also crossed 100-mark in Maharashtra. According to the Ministry of Health and Welfare, Maharashtra has recorded 101 coronavirus patients.
As the number of Covid-19 cases surged past 500, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced a complete nationwide lockdown for 21 days from Tuesday midnight. Only essential services like grocery shops, banks and ATMs and medicine outlets will remain functional.
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At 99 cases on Monday, India saw the highest jump in its Covid-19 tally in a single day. India also reported three coronavirus-related deaths on Monday, taking the death toll to 10 as the number of coronavirus cases climbed to 499.
It took India forty days to reach the first 50 cases, five more days to reach 100 cases, three more days to reach 150 cases and then just two more days to reach 200 cases.
In his second national broadcast in a week on the pandemic raging across much of the world with the number of infections rising in India, PM Modi made a fervent appeal to the countrymen not to cross the ‘lakshman rekha’ of their homes in the next three weeks.
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