Coronavirus in India: 20 states/UTs report fresh cases; virus enters Goa, northeast

NEW DELHI: The Covid-19 contagion spread to Goa (three cases reported) and northeast India, where Manipur and Mizoram confirmed one case each, even as 20 states and UTs on Wednesday reported 94 fresh infections — the second highest for a single day after 99 cases on Monday.
Two more deaths, one of an 85-year-old woman in Ahmedabad and another in Tamil Nadu, took the national toll from the virus to 13.The health ministry clarified that the death it had reported in Delhi on Tuesday was not a Covid-19 case.
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The total coronavirus cases in India stood at 656, as reported by states. At least 60 daily cases have been reported in the past five days. A total of 56 patients have recovered so far, eight on Wednesday. The health ministry has confir med 606 cases and 10 deaths so far. The three positive cases in Goa are all male, aged 25, 29 and 55, respectively. All three have recently returned to Goa from Spain, Australia and the US.
State health & family welfare department officials said the Wednesday’s victim was from Danilimda area and had travelled to Mecca in Saudi Arabia. “She was admitted to the Civil Hospital in Ahmedabad with respiratory illness on March 22. She had developed bilateral pneumonia,” said an official.
With 15 new cases, Maharashtra again overtook Kerala as the worst coronavirushit state. State authorities have confirmed 122 cases so far while Kerala has reported 118 (nine new). Karanataka (51), Telangana (41), UP, Gujarat and Rajasthan (38 each) are next in the list.
Delhi, which did not report a single case of Covid-19 in the last two days, confirmed five new cases on Wednesday, taking the state’s total to 35.

Of the new cases, three are linked to the Saudi-returned woman who was found positive on March 17, and two others are residents of Sainik Farms in Delhi with travel history to Brazil and London, officials said.
“The Delhi patient who died on Tuesday tested negative for Covid-19 and therefore he was excluded from the list of Covid-19 deaths. Only one death has taken place in the capital due to Covid-19,” said a health ministry official.
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Meanwhile, Mizoram reported its first Covid-19 case, that of a 50-year-old pastor who had returned from the Netherlands on March 16.
“The man belongs to the Mizoram Baptist Church. His wife and two children have also been shifted to the isolation ward at Zoram Medical College (ZMC) in Falkawn, about 20 km south of the capital. The pastor’s samples have been tested at the Gauhati Medical College laboratory,” Lalthangliana added.
Manipur had reported a case on Tuesday, which has since been confirmed as a coronavirus infection.