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

The mad rush to buy a huge quantity of groceries and vegetables accelerated on Wednesday following rumours that the government was going to close down all wholesale markets and retail shops in the capital to prevent novel coronavirus from spreading. While social media was abuzz with such messages advising people to stock groceries, non-perishable vegetables and other essentials, hawkers selling veggies in various residential colonies also urged people to buy in large quantities as wholesale markets may close down soon.

“It has never been this quiet,” an elderly resident of the Sector 100 society in Noida where a woman tested positive for Covid-19 said. The case was among three in Noida and Gurugram reported on Tuesday. The residential societies they lived in have entered lockdown. They can’t risk contagion.

People showing symptoms of the novel coronavirus should refrain from taking anti-inflammatory drug Ibuprofen and use paracetamol instead. This claim by France’s health minister has received support from World Health Organization (WHO). The UN health agency’s experts on Tuesday said they were ‘looking into this to give further guidance.’ “In the meantime, we recommend using paracetamol, and not Ibuprofen as a self-medication. That’s important,” said an expert. He added that if Ibuprofen had been “prescribed by a professional, then, of course, that’s up to them.”

A suspected Covid-19 patient who was kept under observation at Safdarjung hospital allegedly committed suicide by jumping off the seventh floor of the hospital building on Wednesday evening. Meanwhile, two fresh cases of Covid-19 were reported from Delhi and one each was detected from Noida and Gurgaon on Wednesday, taking the total number of cases in Delhi-NCR to 19 so far. Police say the 23-year-old was admitted to the hospital around 9 pm and was shifted to the quarantine ward at the hospital’s super-specialty block building. The incident happened around 9.15 pm when guards heard a thud and rushed to the courtyard where they found him lying in a pool of blood. It was found he was referred to the hospital from IGI airport after he complained of a headache while being checked at the tarmac. He had arrived in an Air India flight.

A 23-year-old woman with a travel history to UK tested positive for novel coronavirus Wednesday late night, the first case of Covid-19 in Chandigarh. The woman, who is a resident of Chandigarh, had returned from England on Sunday morning. She developed fever and cold on Monday but the symptoms subsided subsequently. She was confirmed coronavirus positive as per a report of PGI’s department of virology.

A man suspected to be infected with coronavirus allegedly committed suicide by jumping off the seventh floor of a Safdarjung Hospital building on Wednesday, soon after he was admitted to the facility here by airport authorities, police said.

Chief Justice Abhay Shreeniwas Oka has said the state government needs to look into the shortage of thermal sensors, sanitizes, surgical gloves and face masks and ensure their supply for use in court premises. He told Additional Advocate General Dhyan Chinnappa to bring the issue to the notice of the Advocate General so that he’ll take it up with the government.

The Karnataka Auqaf Board on Wednesday said that a collective decision has been taken after a high-level committee meeting involving various religious heads, doctors and other experts that proper precautions be taken at various mosques to prevent further spread of Covid-19.

Gearing up to fight against coronavirus, the district administration, Gurugram, on Wednesday decided to close all shopping malls, gymnasium, swimming pools, spas and weekly bazaars across the city till March 31.

The total number of coronavirus cases in Delhi has risen to 10, which includes one foreign national, the Health Ministry said on Wednesday.

In Karnataka, the stringent preventive measures to curb the spread of coronavirus would be in place as a part of which all of those who return from foreign countries would be kept in compulsory quarantine for 15 days.