Mumbai/New Delhi: A 64-year-old man – who was believed to have contracted coronavirus infection – has died in Maharahstra, the state that has reported maximum cases of the highly contagious illness in India. This is the third death in the country linked to coronavirus or COVID-19, declared a pandemic by the World Health Organisation last week.
He was admitted to a hospital in Mumbai. Officials in the state department said they were waiting for the final reports to confirm the cause of death.
The death in Maharashtra comes as number of COVID-19 cases rose to 126 in India. Last week, two people – a 68-year-old woman in Delhi and a 76-year-old man in Karnataka – had died. Both the deaths were linked to COVID-19, which originated in China’s Wuhan city at a meat market in December.
Amid widespread scare, the centre on Monday declared a countrywide lockdown of schools, colleges, gyms and swimming pools – crowded areas that could allow for exponential spread of the virus.
After a meeting of a Group of Ministers which reviewed the situation on Monday, the government also advised that people avoid non-essential travel and employees of private companies work from home. The government had last week declared the novel coronavirus outbreak in the country a “notified disaster”, in a move it called “a special one-time dispensation”.In Maharashtra, the state government has said it would “stamp” all those who have been sent to home quarantine as the total number of cases in the state climbed to 39. The Siddhivinayak Temple of Mumbai — a famous shrine to Lord Ganesh — has also closed its doors, emphasising the need to avoid crowded places and break the chain to counter the pandemic, the Uddhav Thackeray government said on Monday.
Worldwide, over 7,000 people have died, more than one lakh have been infected in 143 countries. The WHO last week declared Europe as the epicentre of the pandemic where the outbreak has been spreading rapidly. On Monday, nearly 14,000 people were infected with the novel coronavirus globally – largest in a single day – bringing the total number of confirmed cases above 167,500, said the WHO.
