The Centre said that if the lockdown had not been imposed, the estimated number of Covid-19 patients could have been over three times higher at 73,400.

India has recorded 23,452 Covid-19 cases till April 24. Going by the Centre’s projections till April 23, this is lower by nearly 50,000 cases.

“The average daily growth rate of cases from March 25 to April 6 was 16.1 per cent; at that rate, the projected total cases from April 6 to 23 would have been 73,400,” said VK Paul, member of the National Task Force for Covid-19.

 

‘Lockdown helped’

According to Paul’s presentation, the reduction in the growth rate of cases was probably the effect of policies adopted from March 12 and after March 25, when the lockdown was announced.

As on April 24, 4,814 persons have recovered while 723 have died. SK Singh, Director, National Centre for Disease Control, said the Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme had placed 9,45,915 air passengers under surveillance from January 23 to April 23.

Until January 23, just 13 passengers were under scrutiny, and this increased to 1,088 by the end of the month. By March 5, this had touched 29,607 and stood at 38,082 passengers by March 12, when international travel curbs were imposed.

By March 26, 2,67,921 passengers were traced, which rose to 9,45,915 only by April 23. The majority of the passengers were traced during the lockdown period.

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Teams to assess situation

Also, with the spike in cases in Gujarat (2,624), Andhra Pradesh (955) and Tamil Nadu (1,683), four more inter-ministerial central teams (IMCT) have been despatched to Ahmedabad, Surat, Hyderabad and Chennai to assess ground-level conditions.

Punya Salila Shrivastava, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Home Affairs, said the IMCT team that visited Dharavi, Govandi and Wadala slum areas observed that the people in Dharavi were unable to practise social distancing as they had to come out of home quarantine to access community toilets.

“The IMCT has suggested to the Maharashtra government that 2,000 to 3,000 persons from Dharavi should be shifted to institutional quarantines; portable toilets should be installed in slums and testing should be augmented,” she said.