E-Paper
Without containment and lockdown, Covid-19 may have spiraled to 8.2 lakh cases by now: Govt
The analysis takes into account the efficacy of containment measures and the lockdown
The government on Saturday said that the country’s response to coronavirus pandemic has been pre-emptive and proactive to the extent of being over-prepared which has helped in preventing a ballooning in number of positive cases, which could have even reached a figure of 8.2 lakh by April 15 in the worst-case scenario.
The health ministry presented two different hypothetical scenarios of the growth of coronavirus in India if steps were not taken to contain it.
According to the first scenario, if India had not implemented either containment or nationwide lockdown, allowing for a 41% growth rate of Covid-19, then the positive cases could have spiraled to 8.2 lakh as on today.
“A statistical analysis of rate of growth suggests that if there was no lockdown or containment measure then the cases growing at 41 per cent rate could have resulted in 8.2 lakh cases by Apr 15,” said Lav Agarwal, joint secretary, health ministry.
The second scenario measures the efficacy of containment measures alone, without taking into account the additional benefit accrued from the implementation of the three-week-long national lockdown, to say that a total of 1.2 lakh positive cases could have been reported by April 15 if the peak growth rate of the disease (28.9%) seen before the implementation of lockdown had sustained.
“Before lockdown, the highest rate of growth of cases was at around 28.9 % and at that rate perhaps the numbers could have risen to 1.2 lakh cases by April 15, and if we compare it to the situation after the implementation of lockdown and containment measures after March 25 then we have seen a significant reduction in the number of cases,” Agarwal added.
The third scenario is the current situation which is not hypothetical projection but the reality of 7447 positive cases in India on April 15. The health ministry official said this reduced figure (compared to the other two scenarios) has been made possible only due to the twin impact of containment measures and the nationwide lockdown.
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The ministry clarified that the first two scenarios are based purely on a statistical analysis involving the rate of growth of coronavirus cases. The data is then projected using variables to arrive at the possible number of positive cases in two different situations. It is implicit that several other variables that have an impact on the spread of the contagion have not been considered for this analysis.
The purpose of this exercise is to underline the importance of containment measures and the nationwide lockdown in keeping the number of infections in India from growing exponentially, like seen in Europe and the US.
The discussion on the analysis came on a day when prime minister is expected to decide if the lockdown period has to be extended beyond April 14. Most chief ministers have suggested an extension of the lockdown. The prime minister is said to be considering their suggestions.
