Stages of Coronavirus and how they determine the status of a country

• PM Modi called for a ‘Janata Curfew’ - a unique voluntary lockdown to be implemented and supervised by citizens on March 22.
  
• This week will be very crucial for India. According to Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), India is in the second stage of transmission which is local transmission.
  
• Moreover, there are no signs on community transmission as yet but that could change.
  
  

On March 20, India recorded its fifth death due to coronavirus after an Italian tourist died in Jaipur. The Union Health Ministry said that India now has 219 infected people — out of which 20 have recovered and five are dead.

There are numerous steps taken by Indian government to fight the Coronavirus. PM Modi has called for a ‘Janata Curfew’ - a unique voluntary lockdown to be implemented and supervised by citizens on March 22.

This week will be very crucial for India. According to Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), India is in the second stage of transmission which is local transmission. Moreover, there are no signs on community transmission as yet but that could change.

Here are the different stages of Coronavirus spread and how they determine the status of a country:


Stage 1: Imported Cases

This is the stage when the virus has just entered a country through someone who returned from a foreign country. India confirmed its first Coronavirus case on January 30, when a student from Wuhan University returned to Kerala. In this stage, most of the cases diagnosed are those of people who have traveled history to foreign countries.


Stage 2: Local Transmission

Since the virus is highly contagious, local transmission takes place when people come in contact with the infected. Hence, only those people who have been in touch with Coronavirus patients are tested. ICMR claims that India is in the second stage. However, experts believe that the country is yet to identify thousands of cases as it is testing very few. As of March 19, ICMR tested 13,786 individuals.


Stage 3: Community Transmission

Community transmission happens when a country starts reporting domestic cases. There are no signs of community transmission in India yet, according to ICMR. They have also started testing random samples of around 1,000 individuals. However, Tamil Nadu’s second patient who tested positive without any travel history has raised fears of a community transmission.


Stage 4: Epidemic
This is the last stage and happens when a large number of people are infected with the disease. Health authorities are forced to choose who to give treatment as the number of patients is very high and facilities are limited. This can be seen in Italy which reported 3,405 deaths.

The number of cases rose exponentially in China too which reported 80,967 confirmed cases. Chinese government recently declared that they have reported a new case of community transmission and their temporary hospitals are closed.


See also: The cost of containing Coronavirus — the world has set aside $3 trillion so far