Lockdowns 'fail' to bring Coronavirus curve down

New Delhi: With India registering a 'huge' jump in the COVID-19 cases after the end of every phase of the nationwide lockdown, it seems the Centre's decision to enforce the nationwide lockdown has not helped the way it was anticipated by the government as in the 67 days of the lockdown period, cases have increased from 606 to 1.73 lakh till date.

After analysing the data, it has come to the notice that total 77,594 new cases were recorded from May 18 to till date in the lockdown 4.0 period, while 48,091 fresh cases were reported in the 14-day's lockdown 3.0 which was from May 4 to May 17 and 28,330 cases were recorded in the 19-day period of the second lockdown which was from April 15 to May 3.

The first phase of the lockdown that began from March 24 to April 14 witnessed a least number of 10,209 new cases in the time period of 21 days.

As per the Union Health Ministry's data, when the first phase of the complete lockdown was started on March 25, there were only 606 confirmed cases of coronavirus, which rose to 10,815 on April 14. At the start of the lockdown 1.0, there were 553 were active cases, 43 had recovered and 10 had lost their battle against the deadly virus. Out of the total cases, 9,272 were active, 1,190 were discharged after being cured and 353 had died.

On the onset of lockdown 2.0 on April 15, there were 11,933 confirmed cases, out of which 10,197 were active, 1,344 had recovered from the disease and 392 had succumbed to the virus. As per the data, at the end of the second phase of the nationwide lockdown on May 3, there were 40,263 positive cases out of which 28,070 were active cases, 10,887 had recovered and 1,306 had died.

On the day, the lockdown 3.0 began on May 4, the country had reported total 42,836 cases, out of which 29,685 were active, 11,762 had cured and 1,389 had died. While at the end of the third phase of nationwide lockdown on May 17, there were 90,927 confirmed cases, out of which 53,946 were active, 34,109 had recovered and 2,872 had died.

The fourth phase of the lockdown, which was enforced from May 18 to May 31 with major relaxations, witnessed a major spike in COVID-19 cases as the country has recorded a spike of 77,594 new cases. When the lockdown 4.0 was started on May 18, there were 96,169 cases in the country out of which 56,316 were active, 36,824 had recovered and 3,029 patients had died due to the deadly infection.

While a day prior to the end of lockdown 4.0, there were 1,73,763 confirmed cases, out of which 86,422 are active, 82,370 have recovered and 4,971 have lost the virus battle.

On the increasing trend, experts have opined that the situation is under control as the recovery rate has jumped to 47 per cent, which was 11 per cent on April 15. "An improvement of 36 per cent in recovery rate is a big achievement. After May 31, the lockdown would be just a word, so people need to be more alert and cautious while going out of their homes," experts suggested.