India Among Top 20 Countries That Are At Risk For Importing Coronavirus

Researchers have recently come up with a mathematical model in order to gauge the global spread of Coronavirus. Based on that, it has been revealed that India ranks at no. 17 and is at a risk importing the virus.

What’s More?

Three cases of Coronavirus have been reported in Kerala. So far, these are the only positive cases that are accounted for in the country. According to reports, within the country, New Delhi airport is at maximum risk because of the frequency international travellers at Indira Gandhi International Airport. New Delhi is followed by Mumbai, Kolkata, Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad, and Kochi according to the model.

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Researchers believe that one of the key reasons for the spread of Coronavirus is ‘air travel’. ‘The busier the route, there is a higher possibility of an infected passenger travelling by this route.’ Connecting flights, travel routes and popular destinations have been taken into consideration by researchers to estimate the global spread.

This prediction model has been developed by researchers from Humboldt University and Robert Koch Institute in Germany.

Statistics Until Now

The global spread of Coronavirus originated in China’s Wuhan area in December 2019. It is the seventh largest city in China and has a population of 11 million people. It was expected to be a major hub for connecting flights, both international and domestic. But due to the outbreak, it was quarantined on January 23, 2020. Unfortunately, by then, the virus had already made its way out to other countries.

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According to the mathematical model, ‘the top 10 countries at risk of importing Coronavirus cases are: Thailand, Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan, USA, Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore and Cambodia.’ To give some perspective, while ‘Thailand is at a national import risk of 2.1 per cent, India is at 0.2 per cent.’ However, the fact that there is even the slightest possibility to spread in the country, every one needs to be cautious.

It has been reported by various news agencies that, ‘around 20 countries have confirmed cases of Coronavirus, and China accounts for about 99 per cent of the infected ones.’