Fact Check: Has India entered 'Community transmission' stage of Coronavirus? WHO answers

While several have speculated that India is already in 'community transmission' stage of the novel Coronavirus, the Indian government itself has denied it. The ongoing coronavirus outbreak has pushed several countries like the US, Spain, Iran which are reporting deaths in hundreds on a daily basis to adopt sever social distancing restrictions. WHO has termed the US as the epicentre of the pandemic which started in China, moved to Europe and finally to the US.

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CLAIM: India in 'Community transmission' stage of Coronavirus

RATING: False

The World Health Organisation (WHO) in its earlier report dated 9 April 2020, claimed that India has already entered the community transmission stage. The report which lists the country along with its total number of cases, new cases, deaths, transmission classification and days since last reported case showed India classified as 'Community transmission' instead of 'Cluster of cases'

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Is India in 'Community transmission' stage?

The WHO has clarified by issuing a corrected report. This report shows India classified under 'Cluster of cases' and NOT 'Community Transmission'. Incidentally, the report also shows China under 'Cluster of cases' while major European countries like United Kingdom, Spain, Italy as 'Pending' to be classified, inspite of reporting deaths in hundreds on a daily basis. Similarly, the US, Canada, Brazil, Chile and several other American countries are classified under 'Community transmission'.

In the daily Health Ministry briefing, Joint Secretary Lav Agarwal has repeatedly stated, "India is in local transmission stage. We will be the first to inform you when India enters stage 3." 

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ORIGIN:

With the daily increase in the number of Coronavirus cases in India with several cases with reported with no foreign travel history, many experts have claimed that India has already entered community transmission. Moreover, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) in its latest study has stated that in the tests conducted on 5,911 Severe Acute Respiratory Illness (SARI) patients, 104 (1.8%) tested positive for COVID-19. Of these, 40 did not have a history of travel outside India or contact with a known COVID-19 case or someone with international travel. The cases with no known travel history were from 36 districts in 15 states - hinting at community transmission.

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