While quoting the Indian Council of Medical Research, the Union Health Ministry revealed during a press briefing that if a single patient who is infected by the Wuhan coronavirus, defies isolation or does not follow safety norms such as social distancing, he/she may end up infecting near 406 persons in 30 days.

As per reports, in medical terms, the phenomenon is known as R-naught or R0, is the basic reproductive number of a virus, an epidemiologic metric used to describe the contagiousness of the infectious agents.

“If we take the ‘R0’ to be 2.5 then one positive person can infect 406 people in 30 days if the social distancing and lockdown measures are not in place, but if social exposure is reduced by 75 per cent then that one sick person will only be able to infect only 2.5 persons,” said Joint secretary Luv Agarwal.

#WATCH Live from Delhi – Union Ministry of Health & Family Welfare briefing on #COVID19 situation. (7th April 2020) https://t.co/AYN5Hl7mqe — ANI (@ANI) April 7, 2020

Joint Secretary Luv Agarwal clarified that no official decision to extend the lockdown has been made as of now and that speculation should not be made about the same.

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Agarwal added, “Till now 326 persons have been discharged after recovery. Till now there are 4,421 COVID-19 positive cases in the country, including 354 cases in the last 24 hours.”

He added “Indian Railways has prepared 40,000 isolation beds in 2,500 coaches. They are making 375 isolation beds daily and this is going on across 133 locations across the country. The government has been adopting a strategy for cluster containment & for outbreaks that are amenable to management. This strategy is producing positive results, especially in Agra, Gautam Buddh Nagar, Pathanamthitta, Bhilwara & East Delhi.”

He stated that several strategies are being conducted on a large scale to combat the novel coronavirus.

The Union Home Ministry also asserted that the status of essential goods and services is by and large satisfactory. The ministry said, “Home Minister did a detailed review of the status of essential commodities & lockdown measures, he gave directions to take appropriate measures and ensure hoarding & black marketing is not done.”

The coronavirus infected cases have reached a distressing mark of 4451 in India. While 114 have succumbed to the disease and 326 have been recovered and discharged.