500 quarantined after virus case detected at India’s presidential palace

About 500 people entered self-isolation at the Presidential House in the Indian capital on Tuesday after a worker’s relative tested positive for coronavirus, officials said, as the number of cases nationwide neared 18,000 despite a strict lockdown.

India’s 1.3 billion people have been ordered to remain indoors for 40 days to slow the spread of the virus so that the country’s hospitals are not overwhelmed by a flood of infections.

So far, three-quarters of the cases are concentrated in seven of the country’s 28 states and these include the city-state of Delhi, as well as the western state of Maharashtra where the financial centre Mumbai is located.

The alarm was raised at President Ram Nath Kovind’s residence in the centre of Delhi after the daughter-in-law of a sanitation worker living in the workers’ quarters tested positive, officials said.

Neither President Kovind, 74, or his aides were required to self-isolate, but palace workers’ families living in 114 apartments on the grounds were ordered to stay inside, while the seven members of the sanitation worker’s family were moved to a quarantine facility.