773 more test positive across India, death toll reaches 172

New Delhi : The Covid-19 pandemic showed a sharp spike in infections, taking the nationwide tally to over 5,500 with at least 172 deaths. In his daily briefing, Union Health Ministry Joint Secretary Lav Agarwal said states have been asked to focus on surveillance and contact tracing as well as on building hospital infrastructure. “We working with a twin approach — focusing on social distancing and then implementing containment measures,” he said.
The Supreme Court also asked the government to issue directions for facilitating Covid-19 tests in government or private labs for free of cost. As per the latest update from the ICMR, more than 1.2 lakh tests have been conducted so far across the country.
In its evening update, the Health Ministry said the total number of confirmed coronavirus cases in the country has risen to 5,274 and 149 have died. Earlier in the day, the Ministry had said the tally rose by 773 in 24 hours till Wednesday morning, the biggest increase in this time period.
However, tally of cases reported by states as of 6.30 PM showed 5,521 people having been tested positive so far and at least 172 deaths. Approximately 500 people have been cured and discharged.
New cases were reported from Maharashtra (including in Mumbai’s densely-populated Dharavi slums), Rajasthan, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Jammu & Kashmir, among other places. Ladakh’s Lok Sabha member Jamyang Tsering Namgyal said the virus spread has been successfully contained in the union territory, while Sikkim government said not a single case has been detected so far in the state.