"Increase In COVID-19 Cases Linear Not Exponential," Says Government

The increase in the number of fresh COVID-19 cases in the country is "more or less linear, not exponential", the government said this evening, adding to data released this morning that showed 1,409 new cases and 41 deaths have been reported over the past 24 hours. The government also pointed to improvements in recovery rates and increase in doubling time as indications the lockdown ordered by Prime Minister Narendra Modi last month was working to contain the novel coronavirus.

The government said recovery rates had risen to 19.89 per cent, with 4,257 people being discharged after receiving treatment. The rate, which is the number of people to have recovered as a percentage of the total number of cases, was 9.99 per cent last week.

The government added that no new cases had been reported from 78 districts across 23 states and union territories in the last 14 days; none were reported in 28 days from 12 districts.

"The growth of COVID-19 cases has been more or less linear, not exponential; this indicates that the strategies we adopted have succeeded in containing the infection to a particular level. Post imposition of lockdown, while the number of new positive cases has increased by 16 times, testing has increased by 24 times," CK Mishra, Chairman of one of the 11 empowered groups set up by PM Modi to deal with the health crisis, said.

"During the 30 days of lockdown, we have been able to cut transmission, minimise spread and increase doubling days of COVID-19. We have been able to consistently ramp up testing and utilise our time preparing for the future in case the virus spreads further," he added.

With increased testing in mind, the government has now authorised 325 labs (including private ones) to conduct COVID-19 testing and over 3,700 hospitals and dedicated facilities and nearly two lakh isolation beds have been set up, the government said.

"Testing capacity has increased 33 times in 30 days of lockdown but it is also not enough... still we are trying to increase testing facility in the country. So, if we see the figure of positive patients it is almost the same 4-4.5 per cent when we were at 14,915 tests on March 23. And today we are at 5 lakh test... the percentage is almost same," CK Mishra said.

Government data released earlier showed the doubling rate of the infection - or the days it takes for the number of cases to increase by 2 - is increasing. On Monday the Health Ministry said this was 7.5 days, up from 3.4 days before the nationwide lockdown.

In terms of the spread of the virus, Maharashtra, Gujarat and Delhi have around 48 per cent of all cases in India, with each reporting over 2,000 cases; Maharashtra alone has over 5,500 cases.

Overall, cases have been reported from 430 districts in 32 states and union territories (up from 211 on April 2), with six major cities reporting over 500 cases each. Mumbai alone has more than 3,000, while Delhi has over 2,000 and Gujarat's Ahmedabad has 1,000+ cases.

Overall, the total number of novel coronavirus cases in the country has risen to 21,393 with 681 deaths, the government said, adding that testing had been "ramped up".