The financial capital of the country, Mumbai, has emerged as the hotbed of the coronavirus spread in the state.
As the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic outbreak continues to spread like wildfire across India, the state of Maharashtra has emerged as the epicenter of coronavirus spread as it became the first state to cross over 3,000 positive cases of COVID-19 in the country. The case tally in Maharashtra currently stands at 3,081.
According to sources, the state has reported 165 new COVID-19 cases since last evening alone, out of which 107 cases were found in Mumbai, followed by 19 in Pune and 10 in Nagpur. According to the Maharashtra Health Department, a total of 187 people have died in the state due to the coronavirus so far and 295 patients have recovered from the deadly disease.
The financial capital of the country, Mumbai, has emerged as the hotbed of the coronavirus spread in the state. The biggest challenge in Mumbai is containing the spread of coronavirus in Dharavi, considered one of the largest slums in the world.
The Mumbai Police had last Sunday barricaded the Dharavi area in the city amid rising coronavirus cases from the locality. Police personnel were also deployed in the area to keep a watch on the movement of people.
It is to be noted that Dharavi is a densely populated slum in Mumbai with over 15 lakh people, spread over 613 hectares. Many media reports claim that social distancing in such a densely populated slum is unthinkable. On an average, five to eight people share a 100 sq ft of room in this region. According to the guidelines of social distancing set by WHO, one person should get to stay a minimum of 20 sq ft of the area but in Dharavi, it is less than 10 sq ft.
But even outside of Dharavi, the city of Mumbai remains adversely affected by the virus outbreak. New cases of COVID-19 affected individuals are being reported from the Dadar area in South Mumbai.
Meanwhile, the Maharashtra government announced some relaxation in the lockdown restrictions. A notification order was issued by Maharashtra Chief Secretary Ajoy Mehta in this regard.
The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has also stated that there is no community transmission of India so far, adding that the chain of transmission of coronavirus can be broken successfully if no case is reported for 28 days from a particular area.
The first phase of a 21-day nationwide lockdown announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi last month to stop the spread of coronavirus ended on Tuesday. In 21 days of the lockdown, COVID-19 cases in India rose from 519 on March 24 to 10,815 on April 14. During the period, the death toll has risen from 10 to 353.
On Wednesday, the government declared 170 districts in the country as coronavirus hotspots and 207 as non-hotspots. Hotspots are the regions that have reported a significant number of positive cases.
The health ministry has defined three zones — Red, Orange, and Green. The districts in the Red zone can become Orange zone if no new cases reported in the last 14 days, while the orange zone can convert into the Green zone if no case is reported in the last 14 days.
This way, if a Red zone has to convert in the Green Zone, it will take 28 days with no new cases.
Data obtained from the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) said, till April 14, the number of samples tested stood at 2,44,893, an increase of 27,339 from the corresponding figure till the previous day (2,17,554).
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 "Photo: Zee Media Newsroom")
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