The Centre on Tuesday cited WHO data to reiterate the point that India was faring much better than the worst coronavirus affected countries in the world because of ‘timely’ and ‘cohesive’ containment efforts, including the two-phased 40-day-long nationwide lockdown and other curbs.
The health ministry official present at the regular briefing by a joint panel of government officials on the status of Covid-19 in the country on Tuesday said that the combined data of top 20 coronavirus affected countries (excluding China and India) in the world gave a good measure of India’s success in relatively keeping the disease under a check.
The health ministry official threw light on the logic behind the comparison by pointing out that the combined population of these 20 countries-- United States, Spain, Italy, UK, Russia, Turkey, Germany, France, Iran, Brasil, Belgium, Canada, Netherlands, Switzerland, Peru, Portugal, Ecuador, Sweden, Ireland and Saudi Arabia-- was close to India’s population, and therefore, offered some perspective on India’s virus-fighting efforts.
“According to the WHO data from yesterday, confirmed cases in those 20 countries are 84 times more than the positive cases in India. Similarly, the number of coronavirus deaths in these countries are 200 times more than the number of deaths reported in India,” Agarwal said.
As on Tuesday afternoon, the top 20 infected countries, China excluded, listed on the WHO dashboard have a combined tally in excess of two million at 2,402,403 while India’s total tally was at 27,892.
{{/usCountry}}As on Tuesday afternoon, the top 20 infected countries, China excluded, listed on the WHO dashboard have a combined tally in excess of two million at 2,402,403 while India’s total tally was at 27,892.
{{/usCountry}}According to the latest data offered by the government, India had a total of 29,435 confirmed positive cases on Tuesday, including 21,632, who were under active medical supervision and 6,868 people, who have been cured so far. India’s recovery rate of patients had increased by a few notches to reach 23.3%, Agarwal said.
The HT Guide to Coronavirus COVID-19
He provided more statistics in support of government’s claim of faring better than the worst and said the doubling rate of Covid-19 cases now stood at 10.2 days.
He added further that no new cases were reported from 17 districts in the last 28 days.