Steve Hanke, a top professor of the Johns Hopkins University and a renowned economist, has come out in the open and criticized the COVID-19 numbers put out by the Indian government.
The Indian government has been releasing numbers on a day to day basis. The Health Ministry briefs media almost every day and provides an update on the coronavirus pandemic situation in the country. However, Professor Steve Hanke has said that the numbers of the country look highly suspicious and have warned that India might soon have an Italy-like situation due to its low testing.
On the 9th of June, Professor took to his Twitter account and tweeted a graph from the Johns Hopkins University website which reads “The Rotten Apples” referring to the nations with suspicious statistics. He wrote,
“These countries are the rotten Apples of the coronavirus data. These countries either do not report COVID data or are reporting highly suspicious data.”
The other countries on the list include Vietnam, Venezuela, Egypt, Syria, Yemen, Turkey, and China. India and Turkey are the only two democracies included in the list. Professor Hanke has earlier criticized India in its handling of the novel coronavirus. He had condemned the Narendra Modi led government of conducting an insufficient number of tests.
India’s Recoveries Overtake Active Cases
For the first time since the outbreak was reported in the country, India has more number of recoveries than active cases as of Wednesday morning.
The tally of the total positive cases of the country soared past the 2.7 lakh mark as the country reported over 9,000 cases for the 8th consecutive day. The Country now has 2,76,583 coronavirus positive cases. A total of 1,35,206 patients have successfully recovered from the deadly disease. The active cases in the county as of Wednesday morning is at 1.33 lakh. The death tally, however, crossed 7,745. 279 patients died on Tuesday alone.
In terms of the number of cases, India stands at the 6th position in the world behind Spain, the United Kingdom, Russia, Brazil, and the United States of America. In terms of the number of recoveries, India stands at 8th position behind Iran, Turkey, Italy, Germany, Russia, Brazil, and the United States of America.
