The Indian Medical Association (IMA) has confirmed that community spread of the COVID-19 virus has begun in the country describing the situation bad. Dr. V K Monga, the Chairman of IMA Hospital Board of India said. "This is now an exponential growth. Every day the number of cases is increasing by more than around 30,000. This is really a bad situation for the country. There are so many factors connected with it but overall this is now spreading to rural areas. This is a bad sign. It now shows a community spread."
Continuing further, he said, the pandemic is now spreading to towns and villages where it will be very difficult to control the spread of the virus. He also exercised caution to Maharashtra, Karnataka, Kerala, Goa, and Madhya Pradesh. The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), meanwhile, said that it is ramping up testing facilities regularly. At present, 885 government laboratories and 368 private laboratory chains are conducting Covid-19 tests across the country. As many as 1,34,33,742 samples have been tested for Covid-19 till July 17. Of these 3,61,024 samples were tested on Friday, the ICMR said.
Meanwhile, for the first time, Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan has admitted that the virus spread that way in two coastal villages in Thiruvananthapuram named Poonthura and Pulluvila. The situation in the two coastal hamlets is critical, the chief minister said. Community spread is confirmed when number of infections from unknown sources rises high with the formation of disease spread clusters. In these areas more than half of the people test positive.With the discovery of community transmission, a triple lockdown has been imposed along the coastal areas in Thiruvananthapuram. Coastal hamlets will be strictly cordoned off to prevent further spread. More first line treatment centres will be opened in these areas and more police personnel will be deployed to constantly monitor the situation, added Pinarayi Vijayan.