NEW DELHI: India will know very soon if it is experiencing “community transmission” of coronavirus Covid-19 ), as the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has intensified random sampling of people who display flu-like symptoms but don’t have any history of travel to the affected countries. The preliminary result of the samples is likely to come on Wednesday, ICMR chief epidemiologist RR Gangakhedkar told ET.As reported by ET, each of the 51 ICMR laboratories has started testing random samples. The ICMR has picked up random samples of people with severe acute respiratory illness (SARI) from the intensive care units of various hospitals.“The data will become available in a couple of days. You will get some flavour … and we will have to speculate the situation based on the results of the samples,” he said, adding: “We are already doing surveillance for SARI cases.”Samples are being collected from people who are suffering from breathlessness and those admitted to ICUs where their cause of infection is unknown. “Our immediate worry is to find out an evidence if we have landed into community transmission ,” Gangakhedkar said.The ICMR has sent 20 samples each to its 51 laboratories. The exercise started on March 15.The ICMR director-general, Balram Bhargava, on Friday said India had a 30-day window to halt the beginning of community transmission. “If we manage 30 days, if community transmission doesn’t happen in the next 30 days, we may be at a good wicket,” he had told ET.Community transmission happens when a patient who is not exposed to anyone known to be infected and has not travelled to countries in which the virus is circulating tests positive for infection.Experts at the ICMR said there were four states of the disease. Stage-1 is getting imported cases, stage-2 is local transmission, stage-3 is community transmission and stage-4 is when it turns into an epidemic.While, India is at stage-2 now, experts said stern precautions were being taken so that going to stage-3 (community transmission) could be halted.“It is still not an infection which has gone into community infection. There is still no evidence of a case that acquired an infection from domestic sources where there is no travel history,” Gangakhedkar said.While Indian experts said they would revise the testing protocol depending on the situation, efforts are on to further intensify random sampling. Gangakhedkar on Monday said the ICMR had ordered 1 million reagents required for testing samples.