30% covid-19 cases in India linked to Tablighi Jamaat event: Govt

Approximately 30% of the total covid-19 cases in India are linked to the Tablighi Jamaat event held in mid-March at Nizamuddin Markaz in New Delhi, the ministry of health and family welfare said on Saturday.

According to analysis done by the government, 4,291 of the 14,378 coronavirus cases in the country were found to be linked to the religious event.

“We found that 84% cases in Tamil Nadu, 63% in Delhi, 79% in Telangana, 59% in Uttar Pradesh, 61% in Andhra Pradesh, 91% in Assam and 83% in Andaman and Nicobar were linked to the Tablighi Jamaat event,” said Lav Agarwal, joint secretary, ministry of health and family welfare.

The government on Saturday said the implementation of the containment action plan is yielding good results in 23 states and Union Territories.

“Kodagu (Karnataka) is a new district that has been added to this list along with Mahe (Puducherry) that has not reported any fresh cases during the last 28 days," said Agarwal, adding that 22 new districts in 12 states have not reported any fresh cases during the last 14 days.

These include Lakhisarai, Gopalganj and Bhagalpur in Bihar, Dholpur and Udaipur in Rajasthan, Pulwama in J&K, Thoubal in Manipur, Chitradurga in Karnataka, Hoshiarpur in Punjab, Rohtak and Charkhi Dadri in Haryana, Lohit in Arunachal Pradesh, Bhardak and Puri in Odisha, Karimganj, Golaghta, Kamrup Rural, Nalbari and South Salmara in Assam, Jalpaiguri and Kalimpong in West Bengal, and Vishakhpatnam in Andhra Pradesh.

“As of now, the mortality rate for covid-19 is 3.3%. Further analysis of the data indicates that out of the deceased 14.4% of people are in the 0-45 years age group, 10.3% in the 45 -60 years age group, 33.1% in the 60-75 years age group and 42.2% are above 75 years old,” said Agarwal.

“The data shows that 75.3% of the cases belong to the above 60 years age category. Also it is seen that 83% of cases had comorbidities. This brings to the fore the earlier highlighted facts that elderly people and people with comorbidities are at higher risk,” he said.

According to the government, a total of 14,378 confirmed covid-19 cases have been reported in the country. As many as 1,992 people, or 13.82% of total cases, have been cured and discharged. A total of 43 deaths were recorded in the last 24 hours, taking the toll to 480.

Meanwhile Prime Minister Narendra Modi urged the country to follow precautions to prevent the spread of the virus. “There is no need to panic. Please keep taking the proper precautions. Together, we all will certainly defeat the COVID-19 pandemic,” Modi tweeted on Saturday.