Health Ministry confirms India still in local transmission stage of COVID-19

As the country continues its fights against Coronavirus, the Health Ministry on Monday clarified that the country is still in the local transmission stage and if it reaches the community transmission stage, the Ministry will admit. In its daily press briefing in New Delhi, the ministry's joint secretary Lav Aggarwal said asked people to continue to adhere to strict social distancing norms and report themselves should they suspect of COVID-19 like symptoms.

"There is only local transmission in this country, no Community transmission, if it reaches the community transmission stage, the Health Ministry will admit it but country is not there yet," said Lav Aggarwal.

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Meanwhile, India has reported 92 fresh cases of the novel Coronavirus and four deaths in the last 24 hours, taking the total number of cases to 1071 and the number of deaths to 29, the Union Health Ministry added.

Aggarwal claimed that as per their analysis, the rate in the rise of new positive cases in a "developing country" like India is slower than that of other "developed countries" due to "public cooperation and (the government's) pre-emptive actions". The underlying reference was clearly to Western countries like the United States, Spain, and Italy which have become the new hotspots of the Coronavirus pandemic and whose health system has been overwhelmed.

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