The Evening Wrap Welcome to the Evening Wrap newsletter, your guide to the day’s biggest stories with concise analysis from The Hindu. We hope you are staying home and staying safe. Here are the big stories that you need to follow today: Zoom Out Our biggest story today concerns the video conferencing app Zoom. The whole world seems to have taken to it in this time of lockdowns and social isolation. The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has now issued an advisory that Zoom is not a safe platform. Zoom is a U.S.-based company but the software used in the online platform is said to be made in China, and some calls were also being routed through servers in China. Following a public debate recently over surveillance and private data being stolen during these calls, the Cyber Coordination Centre of the MHA issued a set of guidelines for safe usage by private individuals. These guidelines were not directed at government offices and government officials, the Ministry noted. Interestingly, a note shared on April 2 by the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-IN) had said that multiple vulnerabilities have been reported in the video conferencing platform “which could allow an attacker to gain elevated privileges or obtain sensitive information.” So far as the guidelines are concerned, users are advised to set strong passwords and enable “waiting room” feature so that call managers could have a better control over the participants. They ask users to avoid using personal meeting ID to host events and instead use randomly generated meeting IDs for each event and not share the link on public platforms. However, for many, including top officials of key ministries, the notification may have come too late. On April 1, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh posted pictures of a virtual meeting with officials where he was seen using Zoom. Ministries of Civil Aviation, Road Transport and Small and Medium Industries have also used Zoom after the lockdown was imposed on March 24. On Thursday, even after the advisory was issued, Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) used the platform for a video conference with around 60 journalists. The Union Health Ministry that is coordinating with States on COVID-19 has also been using Zoom for video conferences. A health ministry official said it will discontinue using Zoom following MHA’s advisory. Covid Watch - Numbers and Developments The total number of COVID-19 positive cases in India shot up to 13,032 with the death toll at 436. Globally, more than 2,083,820 people are infected, with the casualty count standing at 137,500. A great resource to follow is our state-wise tracker for COVID-19 cases, deaths, and testing rates. The tracker is updated frequently and gives a more granular picture of the situation across the country. It features regularly on our daily update podcast, where we track the latest COVID-19 developments in India. Fifteen more cases were reported today from Dharavi, which also saw its ninth fatality from the pandemic. The area continues to be a cause of huge concern because of its population density. Dharavi now has a total of 86 cases. Of Thursday's new cases, 11 are from Muslim Nagar alone. Of these 11, one is a 13 year-old boy. The state of Maharashtra, however, says it will open up industrial activity in the Special Economic Zone and the Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation (MIDC) zones in as many as 20 districts from April 20. These districts have been identified as posing “least danger” to economic activity because the number of COVID-19 cases are the lowest here. Three more have died in West Bengal, taking the total death toll in the state to 10. In the health ministry briefing today, a spokesperson said the fatality rate is 3.3% in the country, while recovery is 12.02%. In 27 districts of 17 States, no cases have been reported in the past 14 days, he added. “Over 2.90 lakh tests have been conducted so far, with 30,043 tests conducted yesterday," said an ICMR representative. Rapid test kits arrive Speaking of tests, India received 5 lakh rapid COVID-19 testing kits from China today. These are basically antibody tests. The Head of Epidemiology and Communicable Diseases at ICMR, Dr. Raman R. Gangakhedkar, said these will be used for surveillance and to monitor whether coronavirus hotspots in the country are increasing or decreasing. Rapid antibody tests are for monitoring and surveillance rather than for diagnosis. Regarding concern over the efficacy of the rapid antibody testing kits, Gangakedhkar said that if an antibody test of a person turns out to be positive, one cannot necessarily be sure the person would not get infected again. “This means, even if an antibody is present, that doesn’t mean it will necessarily be able to fight off the virus.” For a detailed explanation of the difference between antibody tests and diagnostic tests, and how the former can be used effectively, listen to this episode of our Expert View series of podcasts here. Quarantine after pizza A 19-year-old pizza delivery man has tested positive for the novel coronavirus in Delhi, prompting authorities to quarantine a total of 89 people, including 72 people in South Delhi at whose homes he had made deliveries. “A total of 17 people, including the owner of the shop and other delivery boys, have been put under institutional quarantine. The shop has been shut,” said B.M. Mishra, District Magistrate (South Delhi). “The 72 people in houses where he made deliveries have been put under home quarantine. All these houses are within a 5-km radius of Malviya Nagar,” he added. Evening Wrap will return tomorrow. | 
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