Government pitches for social distance as India registers 124 cases

New Delhi : India may face a sudden rise in the number of coronavirus cases if the states do not take strict measures to stop spreading of it in the community.

"As a scientist, my immediate worry is to find evidence of us landing into community transmission mode. We don’t have that yet. So my worry is finding it out," Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) scientist Raman R. Gangakhedkar told reporters on the sidelines of a press conference. 

A virus can travel through a community if no action is taken on time. The accepted belief so far has been that Indians have contracted the virus abroad and that patient quarantine has stopped community transmission.

However, it has been noticed that cases of self-reporting have been very few.

ICMR is conducting surveillance of random samples to confirm whether there has been any transmission of the disease in any community. Each of its 52 laboratories is taking 20 random samples from nearby public and private hospitals to test for Covid-19.

The preliminary reports will be released by Wednesday, Gangakhedkar said.