ICMR Says India Not In Community Spread Stage

Can’t lower our guard as larger population is at risk, asserts top research body

- Snehanshu Shekhar

One positive news which is hard to believe when the country is almost on verge to touch three lakh confirmed Covid patients is that we are still not in Stage-3.

The country is debating since Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jain triggered this issue by saying that there is a community transmission in Delhi.

Now, after a week, when the Health Ministry team along with NITI Aayog and ICMR team came for a briefing, all are awaiting the outcome of a sero-survey conducted by ICMR to establish whether there is any community transmission happening in hotspot districts or not.

As per the ICMR, India is still not in Stage-3 — means no community transmission yet, but a large population in the country are at risk now and lockdown measures need to continue.

Lockdown curbs need to continue, says ICMR

The question was quite pertinent in view of the soaring Covid-19 figures, especially in hotspots in 15 states, where the caseload is quite high. The ICMR team had started the sero-survey in the third week of May, therefore, whatever data available with the ICMR showed the status of last week of April.

As per ICMR chief, Balram Bhargav, this population base sero-survey was conducted in 83 districts, covering around 28,000 household with a sample size of around 26,400.