The Health Ministry on Saturday said that a ‘statistical rate of growth bases analysis’ has been carried out that estimates the growth of the coronavirus had the lockdown not been imposed. The analysis had projected a total of 8.2 lakh COVID-19 cases by April 15th.
A day before, the Health Ministry had denied reports of an ICMR study which the Ministry of External Affairs had quoted in its briefing to the foreign media. The Health Ministry maintained its stance that was not a report or a study officially conducted. Lav Agarwal, the joint secretary of the Health Ministry explained the projection taken into consideration of containment measures alone without the implementation of the nationwide lockdown.
28.9 Percent Growth Rate was contained
As per the statistical analysis, in a scenario without a lockdown and with the sustainment of the peak growth rate of the disease at 28.9 percent, there could have been 1.2 lakh confirmed coronavirus cases by the 15th of April. At the same rate of growth, by April 11th, the cases could have been at 2 lakh positive cases with just a lockdown and around 44,000 cases with only containment measures.
The current situation, however, after the implementation of the lockdown and the kind of containment measures implemented by the central government and the various state governments, the cases stand at 7,191 active confirmed cases as on the 11th of April. The number currently is significantly lower than the projected number of statistics. This also justifies the measures taken by the government have been effective so far.
The Joint Secretary Lav Agarwal also said that,
“India’s response to the coronavirus pandemic has always been pre-emptive and proactive to the extent of being over-prepared. We have taken a graded approach depending on the situation.”
The lockdown imposed on the 24th of March by the central government was scheduled to end on the 14th of April but the recent developments suggest that the lockdown is likely to get extended for at least 2 weeks. There is also a lot of conjecture about the seal down, a stricter lockdown. However, there are no firm reports to the back the claim but as of now, the extension of lockdown seems likely.
