Published in: The Daily Star

Date: 12 May 2020

India yesterday recorded its biggest one-day spike in coronavirus cases and Pakistan is set to open markets despite a steep rise in numbers of infections amid warning that worst of the crisis is yet to come.

Under pressure, governments in south Asia are gradually opening up their economies to reduce the pain for hundreds of thousands of people out of work for weeks and running short of food and cash.

Apart from India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh, other countries of the region have reported limited number of cases and deaths. Afghanistan has seen 120 deaths and 4402 cases so far.

Nepal yesterday reported ten new Covid-19 cases, which take the country’s coronavirus tally to 120. The country hasn’t reported any deaths. Sri Lanka is tightening lockdown with 863 cases and only 9 deaths.

Myanmar reported 180 cases with 9 deaths. Maldives has 835 cases with 3 deaths. Bhutan has only 9 cases so far.

The tallies probably reflect only a fraction of the actual number of infections. Many countries are testing only the most serious cases.

In the biggest single-day jump, India yesterday recorded 4,213 cases in the last 24 hours, taking the total number of infections to 67,152 in the country. As many as 97 deaths were reported in the same period taking the toll to 2,206.

Of the total Coronavirus cases, 44,029 are active cases and as many as 20,917 COVID-19 patients have been cured and discharged. The recovery rate stood at 31.14 per cent this morning, a significant improvement over 26.59 per cent registered last Sunday.

With the lockdown set to end on May 17, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was scheduled to hold a meeting with chief ministers this afternoon to discuss the shutdown.

Meanwhile, in what can be seen as a step towards easing the nationwide lockdown, the Indian Railways plans to gradually restart limited passenger trains from May 12. India has already relaxed restrictions on farming, banking and public works.

In Pakistan, government embraces further relaxation in lockdown and opened markets amid a sharp rise in death toll and cases. The government hopes that the virus will not spread as rapidly as previously had been estimated but takes measures to prepare the nation for the worst.

During the last one week, the country has recorded 200 deaths and more than 10,000 new cases of the highly contagious virus. With this addition, the overall death toll has surged to 661 with the number of coronavirus cases rising to 30,416.

Source:

https://www.thedailystar.net/world/news/cases-surge-lockdowns-ease-1901662