Punjab likely to see lockdown extension, Amarinder Singh fears community spread

Punjab : Punjab chief minister Capt Amarinder Singh on Friday supported the idea of extending lockdown in wake of rising coronavirus cases in the nation. He also feared that community transmission may have begun in his state.

“We have to seriously consider extending the lockdown and curfew in view of the increased number of positive cases,” the chief minister said on Friday.

Till date, Punjab has registered 139 positive coronavirus cases.

"We had 140,000 who came from abroad. As many as 27 positive cases are secondary cases… Community transmission has started in Punjab," he said.

The Union Health Ministry has been consistently denying that India has entered into Phase 3 of coronavirus, also known as community transmission in which people are diagnosed infected with the coronavirus without any travel or contact history with a person who has visited the infected nation.

A new study by the Indian Council of Medical Research and the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), however, found that 1 in 50 people admitted to hospitals with acute respiratory infections such as pneumonia suffer from the coronavirus disease (Covid-19).

Meanwhile, PM Narendra Modi has also hinted at extending the lockdown in India, he is likely to make an announcement on the decision after video conference with the CMs of the states.

“Currently, only one patient is on ventilator support and two are on a pre-ventilator stage where they only require oxygen. We have 76 operational ventilators in government hospitals and 358 in private hospitals,” Capt Amarinder Singh added.