when did covid-19 start in india

Covid-19 officially started in India with the first confirmed case reported on 30 January 2020 in the state of Kerala, in a student who had returned from Wuhan, China.

Quick Scoop: Key Points

• First detected case: 30 January 2020.

• Where: Thrissur district, Kerala.

• Who: A 20-year-old medical student returning from Wuhan, the original epicentre of the outbreak.

• Confirmation: Her sample tested positive on 30 January 2020 at the National Institute of Virology, Pune.

• Early phase: Initial Indian cases were mainly among students and travelers returning from affected countries, especially China.

How the outbreak unfolded after that

• Late January–February 2020: A small cluster of early cases in Kerala, largely contained through isolation and contact tracing.

• 11 March 2020: The World Health Organization declared Covid-19 a pandemic, by which time India was reporting more scattered cases from international travel.

• 22 March 2020: A nationwide “Janata curfew” was observed as a trial ahead of strict measures.

• 25 March 2020: A nationwide lockdown began as case numbers rose and local transmission started becoming more evident.

In everyday terms, people often say “Covid started in India around late January 2020,” because that is when the first confirmed infection was officially recorded in the country.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.