Maharashtra says no community spread

Mumbai: The government of Maharashtra -- the biggest hotspot of coronavirus in the country with more than 90,000 cases -- has emphatically denied all reports of a community transmission. "I don't believe there is community spread. This is the assumption in my state," state health minister Rajesh Tope said in the backdrop of concerns about community spread in Delhi.

"There needs to be 20 to 40 per cent of cases, which have to come directly from the community, where we cannot find out through contact tracing where they have contracted it from," Rajesh Tope said. "It is either from coming in contact with high risk contacts like the index case or through infection from the index case through an intermediary," he explained.

The state, he said, is tracing every case through the "3T principle -- Aggressive Tracing, Testing and Isolation and Treatment". "We are working according to this principle in Maharashtra and whatever cases are there at present, every case is traced," he added.