In a press conference announcing a host of measures to tackle the coronavirus spread that essentially translate to 'lockdown', Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal made an important announcement.
He said that six locally-transmitted coronavirus cases have been reported in Delhi.
This is significant as it means the novel coronavirus is already present in the community. And is spreading.
Indian Council of Medical Research head Balram Bhargav hinted at the same, putting the blame of the spread though on foreign return passengers.
"Coronavirus cases have surged due to rush of passengers from foreign countries in past few days," he observed.
Then there is the death reported in Gujarat. A 67-year-old man in Surat with no foreign travel history died in a private hospital. He had a domestic travel history though - via Delhi and Jaipur.
With 7 alleged COVID-19 linked deaths, 3 in a day, and a jump of nearly 100 cases in a day, March 22 was significant in the trajectory of the disease. And not just because of 'Janata curfew'.
The cacophony of sound at 5 pm may have disrupted the relative peace and quite that the country as a whole has possibly never witnessed, but in the background, top state secretaries were in a meeting with the central government to massively scale up the restrictive measures in place to contain the spread.
A much needed move. In over a day, the number of cases in India jumped by over 100. Plotted on the map, India's trajectory doesn't look much different from the world. And this is the reported cases we are talking about.
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The graph of deaths doesn't pose a more reassuring picture. 3 deaths in a day, whereas India had witnessed 3 deaths over a 7 day period before this. Fatality rate currently is somewhere around 2 percent.
Significantly, all the cases who have died so far have had underlying conditions - from hypertension and diabetes, to kidney disease and asthma. Not surprising for a country that has the dubious distinction of being both diabetes and heart disease capital of the world.
In that, India has followed the world example. According to a World Health Organisation analysis of cases in China, fatality rate in people with no chronic diseases was 1.4%. But for those with co-morbidities, the numbers shot up significantly:
The social distancing measures that are being imposed right now may help reduce the effect of migration and disease. But migrant workers from states that have reported COVID-19 cases are already returning to their home states. The lockdown of inter-state highways, borders and train services hopefully will help stem the spread.
We'll be tracking the data and crunching the numbers right here for you.
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