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Source: https://gulfnews.com/world/asia/indi...dia-1.72183642
COVID-19: New virus hotspots are emerging in villages across India
Exposed migrant workers spread virus deep in India’s hinterlands
Published: June 22, 2020 15:46 Bloomberg
New Delhi: After overwhelming India’s megacities, the coronavirus is now moving through the country’s vast hinterland.
Home to nearly 70 per cent of India’s 1.3 billion population, the nation’s villages have little access to health care and are struggling to support themselves through the country’s prolonged economic slowdown.
Initially isolated from the epidemic that has swamped the capital New Delhi and financial centre Mumbai, rural areas were exposed when millions of migrant workers who lost their jobs in the cities when the government implemented a strict nationwide lockdown on March 25 went home.
The states of Bihar, Assam, Jharkhand, Odisha and Uttar Pradesh received the most number of returning labourers — now they are also witnessing the sharpest rise in new cases in the two weeks to June 8, according to internal government estimates seen by Bloomberg. In the rural districts of Rajasthan and Karnataka, the virus is also spreading rapidly, it showed.
Poor health infrastructure
Infections have now spread to 98 of the country’s 112 poorest rural districts, up from 34 on April 15, according to the report from Niti Aayog, the government’s planning body. Nearly 2,250 new cases were added in those districts...
COVID-19: New virus hotspots are emerging in villages across India
Exposed migrant workers spread virus deep in India’s hinterlands
Published: June 22, 2020 15:46 Bloomberg
New Delhi: After overwhelming India’s megacities, the coronavirus is now moving through the country’s vast hinterland.
Home to nearly 70 per cent of India’s 1.3 billion population, the nation’s villages have little access to health care and are struggling to support themselves through the country’s prolonged economic slowdown.
Initially isolated from the epidemic that has swamped the capital New Delhi and financial centre Mumbai, rural areas were exposed when millions of migrant workers who lost their jobs in the cities when the government implemented a strict nationwide lockdown on March 25 went home.
The states of Bihar, Assam, Jharkhand, Odisha and Uttar Pradesh received the most number of returning labourers — now they are also witnessing the sharpest rise in new cases in the two weeks to June 8, according to internal government estimates seen by Bloomberg. In the rural districts of Rajasthan and Karnataka, the virus is also spreading rapidly, it showed.
Poor health infrastructure
Infections have now spread to 98 of the country’s 112 poorest rural districts, up from 34 on April 15, according to the report from Niti Aayog, the government’s planning body. Nearly 2,250 new cases were added in those districts...