New Delhi: While addressing the daily press briefing at New Delhi, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) representative, said that the modified guidelines issued by Kerala and some other districts are in violation of the Disaster Management Act, 2005 and that the guidelines issued by MHA are to be strictly followed during the lockdown.It further said under the Disaster Management Act, the MHA has decided to set up six inter ministerial central teams for on-the-spot evaluation of four states – Rajasthan, Maharashtra, West Bengal and Madhya Pradesh. These teams would constitute of six persons each, including a senior public health specialist and a senior officer of national disaster management authority.“The idea is to share the available expertise with the states. These teams would submit a report on the implementation of the lockdown, continuity of essential services, health facilities, camps for labourers and safety of health personnel,” said the MHA official.Giving out the data at the daily press briefing at New Delhi to provide updates on the government’s action taken and preparedness to tackle COVID-19, Lav Agarwal, joint secretary at the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) said, 2,546 people have been cured nationwide till now.In the last 24 hours, 1,553 confirmed cases have been reported, taking the total confirmed cases to 17,265. 36 new deaths have also been reported in the past one day.Speaking of the doubling rate – the number of days in which the number of positive COVID-19 cases double – the ministry said that the doubling rate in India has increased from 3.4 days before the lockdown to 7.5 days after the lockdown, which shows an improvement in the case management.Agarwal further enumerated 18 other states across India where the doubling rate is better than the national average. These include Delhi (8.5 days), Karnataka (9.2 days), Telangana (9.4 days), Andhra Pradesh (10.6 days), Jammu and Kashmir (11.5 days), Punjab (13.1 days), Chhattisgarh (13.3 days), Tamil Nadu (14 days), Bihar (16.4 days), Andaman and Nicobar (20.1 days), Haryana (21 days), Himachal Pradesh (24.5 days), Chandigarh (25.4 days), Assam (25.8 days), Uttarakhand (26.6 days), Ladakh (26.6 days), Odisha and Kerala (both more than 30 days).Also read: India Has Tested 3,86,791 Persons for COVID-19, Says Govt at Press BriefingHe also said that all the COVID-19 patients in Goa have recovered and have been discharged from the hospital, indicating that there are no active cases in Goa.Pauri Garhwal in Uttarakhand has also been added to the list of districts that have not reported positive cases over the last 28 days. Mahe in Kerala and Kodagu in Karnataka were originally the part of this list.A total of 59 districts in 23 states and union territories have reported no cases, with an addition of six new districts. These are Dungarpur and Pali from Rajasthan, Jamnagar and Morbi from Gujarat, North Goa from Goa, and Gomati from Tripura.Stating that social distancing as the only effective vaccine available against COVID-19, he cautioned that even after today’s relaxation of the lockdown, people must still observe social distancing.At the daily brieing, the Indian Council of Medical Research representative was asked if ICMR has conducted batch-wise tests before dispatching the rapid anti body tests to states, as it has come under scanner across the world. To this, the ICMR representative replied, “Rapid tests are nowhere used for diagnosis of individuals because it is yet not known that the antibodies developed to fight the disease are powerful enough. Even with this limitation, it can be used for surveillance.”A team of doctors check slum dwellers during a health survey in Vallabh Nagar, Bhopal, April 20, 2020. Photo: PTIHe added that ICMR received a grievance from West Bengal about the working of RTPCR (reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction). “The BGI kit is FDA approved and its standard are quite good but it must be ensured that the kit is kept below 20 degree centigrade. If the temperature goes about that, test results will not be effective,” the official said.Also read: What the First COVID-19 Autopsy Reports Tell UsA major question arrived about COVID-19 positive cases being asymptomatic. To this, the authorities replied, “Out of 100 cases, 80 of them are asymptomatic or mild symptomatic.”With 30 journalists in Mumbai testing positive, a question was asked as to whether the MoHFW would test all journalists on the ground. “We request you all to follow precautions of using a face mask and maintaining social distance while you attend your call of duty. As far as sampling is concerned, the criteria is very clear,” Agarwal said.When asked if it is time to revise the testing strategy since the current approach is to screen only the symptomatic people except the hotspot areas – leaving aside those who are asymptomatic – Agarwal said, “When we highlight which area are of major concern to us, we have two major criteria – one, where there are higher number of cases reported and the other, where the growth of cases or the doubling rate is high or low, this tells us where we need to have an effective intervention so that those areas don’t lead to larger cases further.”Adding to his point, he said, “The present testing is detailed and takes into account severe acute respiration illness and even influenza like illness in high risk areas.”The authorities also dodged a question which referred to the Tablighi Jamaat event. The question that went unanswered was, “While the ministry focused on 23% contribution of Tablighi Jamaat congregation to the COVID-19 cases in India, what suggests the growing number of cases in states like Maharashtra, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu and Madhya Pradesh?”