India sees highest single-day rise with 1,752 new COVID-19 cases
New Delhi: With 1,752 new positive cases in the last 24 hours, India recorded the highest single-day spike in COVID-19 cases on Friday, taking the country's tally to 23,452, while the death toll stood at 723.
However, the Health Ministry officials maintained that if the lockdown had not been announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi when it was, there would have been one lakh COVID-19 cases in the country by now.
The good news is that with 489 recoveries have happened in a day; the rate of which has improved from 20 per cent to 20.5 per cent on Friday as a total of 4,814 patients have been discharged from the hospitals.
The Health ministry stated that no new cases were reported in 15 districts in the last 28 days. The new Corona-free districts are Durg, Rajnandgaon from Chhattisgarh and Shivpuri from Madhya Pradesh.
According to the ministry officials, the virus outbreak is under control in the country and with the help of a robust surveillance network, a total of 9.45 lakh people are under the surveillance.
While addressing a press briefing, chairman of Empowered Group-1 and Niti Aayog member V K Paul said: "The lockdown has been effective in slowing the rate at which COVID-19 cases is doubling in India, and it now stands at 10 days."
Paul also made it clear that the data or analysis of cases provided by the government is true and the chances of reconsolidation are negligible.
"If we go back to March 21, the cases were doubling in around three days. An important turn came on March 23 after the 'Janata Curfew'. The direction changed and the doubling rate increased to five. By then, we had already put in place travel restrictions and had created an environment of social distancing," Paul said.
"There were some disturbances in between and we went back a little. But from April 6, the doubling time started improving," he said, adding that the nationwide lockdown has "proved to be very timely and beneficial".
"The curve has begun to flatten. Had we not taken the decision of clamping the nationwide lockdown, we would have had around 1 lakh COVID-19 cases by now, as per a reasonable estimate. Now, the outbreak is under control," Paul said, adding that these projections are based on the growth pattern at a particular time.
Director of National Centre for Disease Control S K Singh said surveillance has been the country's primary weapon.
As on Friday, India conducted 5,41,789 tests. There are at least 272 testing labs in the government network and 87 private labs to conduct the COVID-19 tests.
Meanwhile, the Centre on Friday said the COVID-19 situation is especially serious in major or emerging hotspot areas including Ahmedabad, Surat, Hyderabad and Chennai.
Four new interministerial teams have been sent to monitor the COVID-19 situation in Gujarat, Telangana and Tamil Nadu, officials said on Friday.
"The situation is especially serious in major hotspot districts or emerging hotspots like Ahmedabad and Surat (Gujarat), Thane (Maharashtra), Hyderabad (Telangana), and Chennai (Tamil Nadu)," the statement said.
