India awaits coronavirus COVID-19 lockdown status, PM Narendra Modi address at 10 am on April 14

New Delhi: A day ahead of 21-day lockdown, the number of coronavirus COVID-19 cases on Monday (April 13) reached 9352 with 905 new cases reported in the last 24 hours, but 25 districts across 15 states have not reported any case in the last 14 days, according to Union Health Ministry report. 

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, however, will address the nation at 10 am on Tuesday. The Prime Minister is likely to talk about the further course of action to deal with the crisis posed by COVID-19 pandemic. A post from the official Twitter handle of PMO read, "PM Narendra Modi will address the nation at 10 am on Tuesday."

Prime Minister @narendramodi will address the nation at 10 AM on 14th April 2020.

— PMO India (@PMOIndia) April 13, 2020

Last week, PM Modi held a meeting with state Chief Ministers through video conference and at least 10 CMs had reportedly advocated for an extension of the ongoing shutdown to contain COVID-19 pandemic. While some Chief Ministers advised him to extend it 'at least for the rest of April', some had advocated 'caution' if he decides against extending it.

On March 24, the Prime Minister had announced the 21-day lockdown in the country to contain the spread of coronavirus. As expectations mounted that the Prime Minister may dwell on plans to restart economic activities in a graded manner, Tamil Nadu and Arunachal Pradesh today formally announced an extension of the lockdown till April 30 taking to eight the number of states adopting this step. The other states are Odisha, Punjab, Maharashtra, Telangana, West Bengal and Karnataka.

Notably, 51 people died in the last 24 hours taking total toll 324. As many as 25 staff members of Mumbai`s Bhatia hospital tested positive for the deadly virus and number of cases in the city has reached 1549. The number of those who have died has reached 100 in Mumbai. 

With 2,064 cases, Maharashtra continues to be the worst affected followed by Delhi with 1,154 cases and Tamil Nadu with 1075 cases. The number of containment zones in Delhi has been increased to 47. In Delhi, traders at Delhi`s Azadpur Mandi have been told to follow the odd-even rule according to their shed numbers to maintain social distancing. There will be staggered time for sale of vegetables and fruits in the mandis.

New cases have been reported from several states including Kerala, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh. Nagaland reported its first COVID-19 case following which several localities and a hospital in Dimapur hve been sealed. Uttarakhand Health Department, however, stated today that no new positive COVID-19 case emerged in the state for the fifth day in a row.

Lav Agarwal, a joint secretary in the Union Health Ministry, said 796 new COVID-19 cases and 35 deaths have been reported in the last 24 hours, taking the total number of cases to 9,152 and fatalities to 308. In some good news, Agarwal also said 25 districts across 15 states which had detected COVID-19 infections earlier have contained the spread and reported no new cases in 14 days.

In the wake of spurt in COVID-19 cases in India, the ICMR has taken into account the need to expeditiously expand COVID-19 testing facilities in all parts of the country and has initiated a proactive search of potential laboratories which could be enabled for coronavirus testing, a senior official said.

According to an ICMR official, 2,06,212 tests for COVID-19 have been conducted so far. "Of these 14,855 tests took place at 156 government labs and 1,913 tests happened at 69 private labs on Sunday. There is no need to worry. We have enough stocks to conduct tests for six weeks," the official said.

Seeking to expeditiously expand COVID-19 testing facilities, the government has identified 14 Centres of Excellence such as PGIMER in Chandigarh, AIIMS, New Delhi and NIMHANS in Bangalore to mentor all government and private medical colleges in their catchment areas to create state-of-art molecular virology setups.

The Centre has also sought inputs related to production, labour and logistics from clusters in five key sectors to ascertain expected output if they are made operational within a fortnight and procedural support required, official sources said. The five sectors are textiles, chemicals, electronics, steel and pharmaceutical, the sources said.

Industry chamber CII has suggested a "slow and staggered" approach to reopening various sectors based on classification of geographies as red, amber and green, depending upon the incidence of COVID-19 cases. Textiles and apparels, pharmaceuticals, food processing, minerals and metal, besides e-commerce, automobiles and chemicals are the key sectors that need to restart operations in a calibrated manner, a CII report said.

Earlier today, Union ministers and senior officials resumed working from offices in Delhi as the Centre scaled up its activities to deal with the situation arising out of the coronavirus crisis. The ministries became fully operational while following standard operating procedures (SoPs) for maintaining social distancing in offices.

Meanwhile, here`s a quick read on the COVID-19 related updates: 

1. The Supreme Court directed that COVID-19 tests will be conducted free of cost for the poor and needy people across the country.
2. The Supreme Court asked the central government to file a reply on a petition seeking evacuation of Indian citizens stranded in several countries, including the United States, amid the coronavirus lockdown.
3. The Supreme Court deferred for two weeks hearing on a petition seeking directions to curb media coverage on the spread of coronavirus due to the congregation at Markaz Tablighi Jammat in Nizamuddin last month.
4. On the 20th day of the lockdown, union ministers and senior officials resumed working from offices on Monday.
5. One hundred and forty-six hotspots have been identified in 15 districts of Uttar Pradesh, having 401 positive COVID-19 cases.
6. Revenue and Disaster Management Department of Odisha government on Monday said that agriculture activities, fisheries, and work under the MNREGA scheme will be exempted from the second phase of coronavirus lockdown.
7. Indian Army recruitment exam has been postponed to May 31 in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
8. The Ministry of External Affairs said it will continue to advise the diplomatic community to follow lockdown guidelines. 9. Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jain on Monday informed that 746 out of the 1,154 coronavirus cases in the national capital are from Markaz area in Nizamuddin
10. Ahmedabad joined the list of cities which have made it compulsorily for people to wear face mask at public places to contain novel coronavirus spread. 

(With Agency Inputs)