The novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) seems to have spread to newer districts since the relaxation of lockdown norms on May 18, 2020, the Indian Express daily reported, citing data quoted at a meeting between Union Cabinet Secretary Rajiv Gauba and chief secretaries of states on June 11.
- According to the data, 98 districts have been affected in the past three weeks.
- Among them, 53 are in the North East.
- Migrant workers have been returning from relatively more industrialised cities and towns in western and southern India to those in the East for some time now.
- 25 of the districts were in Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Odisha and West Bengal, the Indian Express reported.
- The presentation at the meeting also reported on emerging districts of concern — those with at least 400 cases, half of which have been post-May 18.
- They were mostly in Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Karnataka, Jammu and Kashmir and Haryana.
- Gurugram (Haryana, within the National Capital Region), Udupi (coastal Karnataka), Yadgir (Karnataka — Hyderabad-Karnataka region) and Kolhapur (Maharashtra, bordering Karnataka) have been marked particurly as more than 90 per cent of their cases have been in this period.
- Gurugram has had 2,737 cases positive to SARS-CoV-2, according to private aggregator Covid19india.org.
- Udupi has 969 cases while Yadgir has 735.
- Kolhapur’s current tally is 675.
- India’s total tally was set to cross 300,000 by the end of the day.