New Delhi: April 20: India’s doubling rate of cases before lockdown was 3.4 days, it has now improved to 7.5 days as on April 19’2020, as per the data for last seven days, informed by the Joint Secretary, Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, Shri Luv Aggarwal, at the daily media briefing on the actions taken, preparedness and updates on COVID-19, held at National Media Centre, PIB New Delhi today. He further informed, as per data on April 19, 2020, the rate in 18 states is better than the national average. These states are: Delhi at 8.5 days, Karnataka at 9.2 days, Telengana at 9.4 days, Andhra Pradesh at 10.6 days, Jammu & Kashmir at 11.5 days, Punjab at 13.1 days, Chhattisgarh at 13.3 days, Tamil Nadu at 14 days and Bihar at 16.4 days.The rate is less than 20 days in nine states/UTs, between 20 and 30 days in 7 states/ UTs and more than 30 days in Odisha and Kerala.
The doubling rate of cases means the number of days in which total case count is doubling, calculated using growth over the past 7 days. While commending the efforts of our frontline warriors, the Joint Secretary called for continued vigilance. Failure during a single day or by a single person can negate our results so far and hence we need to ensure uniform implementation of containment measures, he said.
Shri Aggarwal shared some other positive developments from the field. He said that all patients in Goa were discharged from hospital after recovery. There is no active case in Goa now. In addition to Mahe (Puducherry) and Kodaggu / Coorg (Karnataka), Pauri Garhwal (Uttarakhand) too now has not reported any fresh cases during the last 28 days. Further, 6 new districts have been added to the list of districts where no new case has been reported during the last 14 days. The six new districts added in this list are Dungarpur and Pali in Rajasthan, Jamnagar and Morbi in Gujarat, North Goa in Goa and Gomati in Tripura. With this, 59 districts (apart from the 3 districts above where no case has been reported for last 28 days) have not reported any fresh case during the last 14 days.
He informed that the main reason why India is able to manage relatively better than other countries is that every citizen is fighting with the government in this battle. Calling for strict implementation of lockdown in containment zones, he requested everyone to cooperate with health workers in contact tracing and surveillance and avoid deaths by focusing on patient management in every way. He noted that relaxation to lockdown measures has been provided in some states since today. In this context, he said it is important that people follow the norms of social distancing, so that cases come down further in areas where they are decreasing, and green zone areas continue to maintain the status of ‘zero case’. (Inputs from PIB)
