Coronavirus in India live updates: Fourth positive case of COVID-19 reported from Gurugram

The National Conference suspended on Thursday all its political activities in Kashmir in the wake of the first positive case of the novel coronavirus pandemic in the Valley. The NC requested party activists to lend help to the administration in spreading awareness about proper sanitation and social-distancing guidelines.

Growing concern over the spread of coronavirus was evident at the local government medical college, where laundry service staff refused to wash clothes from the isolation ward which has three Covid-19 patients and another four under observation. The ward staff on Monday gave the isolation ward clothes like bedsheets, curtains etc for cleaning to the 'dhobi', who also washes clothes of other wards.

Maharashtra chief minister Uddhav Thackeray is in touch with the Indian embassy in Singapore to bring back the students who are stranded in that country due to unavailability of flights in the wake of coronavirus outbreak. A statement issued by the Chief Minister's Office (CMO) on Thursday said the embassy will take care of the students till their return to India.

Railways on Thursday cancelled 84 trains, which will not operate between March 20 and March 31, in view of low occupancy and the novel coronavirus pandemic, officials said. With this, the total number of cancelled trains has climbed to 155. Railway officials said the trains were identified last night and the decision will be effective from March 20 until March 31.

Two women tested positive for coronavirus in Mumbai metropolitan region on Thursday, taking the number of such cases in Maharashtra to 47, officials said. While one woman had returned from the UK, another one had come back from Dubai, they said.

Andhra Pradesh reported the second case of coronavirus, the state government confirmed on Thursday. The patient had a travel history to London and had returned to India on March 15. After showing symptoms of the coronavirus such as cold, cough and fever, the man was admitted to a hospital in Ongole where he was kept in isolation.

The ICSE board on Thursday postponed class 10 and 12 examinations due to the novel coronavirus threat, officials said. The Council for the Indian School Certificate Examinations (CISCE) Chief Executive Gerry Arathoon said the exams have been postponed till March 31.

Eight persons who have been described as ‘primary contacts’ of the 10 Indonesians have been home quarantined. Karimnagar district officials are now in the process of identifying secondary contacts and other persons who may have come in contact with the Indonesians. They had come to Karimnagar on March 14.

The novel coronavirus cases in India rose to 169 on Thursday after 18 fresh cases were reported from various parts of the country, according to the Health Ministry. The cases include 25 foreign nationals -- 17 from Italy, 3 from the Philippines, two from the UK, one each belonging to Canada, Indonesia and Singapore. The figure also includes three deaths reported from Delhi, Karnataka and Maharashtra so far.

The informal sector in Delhi is fighting a battle for survival in the wake of threat of the novel coronavirus. As the city seems to virtually shut down to contain the spread of Covid-19, daily vendors are left in a lurch, with businesses being severely impacted. These vendors, who mostly comprise migrant populations from neighbouring states, say their earnings have gone down by at least 50%, forcing them to reconsider their lives in the city. They sell a variety of things along road sides – books, earrings, pens and clothes – but most of them have reported similar losses. When TOI visited major markets on Wednesday afternoon, stalls bore a deserted look.

The scare over Covid-19 has hit the food industry hard. Restaurants across the city, ranging classy highend joints to hole-in-the wall units to roadside eateries, from wore a deserted look on Wednesday as residents confined themselves to homes. Even orders through food delivery apps had dropped to a trickle. Standalone restaurants in the core city area recorded a more than 50% drop in footfalls. While a vegetarian restaurant on Luz Church Road that usually bustles with activity had only one fourth of its seats filled, a restaurant on Uttamar Gandhi Salai (Nungambakkam High Road) had just three of its 75 seats occupied during the lunch hour when, normally, all tables are taken. Steven, an employee of the restaurant, said many regular customers were reluctant to visit eateries.

Work from home is the new mantra in these times of Covid-19. But what’s it like to go to work at your office now? It can’t be the same as always. “My biggest fear is that I’ll catch this deadly coronavirus while travelling on public transport and in autorickshaws and cabs and pass it on to my children and elderly people at home,” says a Chennai-based TCS employee.