'Lockdown working, recovery rate up': Centre says COVID-19 outbreak in control in India

Fifteen districts in the country have not reported a fresh case of coronavirus infection for the last 28 days despite having reported COVID-19 patients before, the Centre said on Friday. Durg and Rajnandgaon in Chattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh's Shivpuri were added to the list on Friday.

There are 80 districts where no case has been reported in last 14 days, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, Luv Aggarwal said during a press briefing.

As of now, total 23,452 cases have been reported across the country while the death toll stands at 723. 4814 people have been cured or discharged with a recovery rate of 20.52%.

Dr VK Paul, Member of NITI Aayog and Chairman of Empowered Group 1, which is coordinating Medical emergency management plan, said the curve has begun to flatten because of the timely decision of lockdown.

The nation has shown that lockdown has been effective in saving lives, containing COVID-19 infection and slowing down doubling rate, Paul said.

He further stated that as on March 21 India's doubling time of cases was around 3 days, then results of lockdown started showing in subsequent weeks.

As per estimates, if we had not taken the decision of nationwide lockdown, we would have had around 1 lakh COVID-19 cases by now, he said.

Stating that the testing strategy has stood the test of time, he informed, the volume of testing has been adequate. Despite an increase in testing, the proportion of positive cases has not increased, he said.

He also said that there is no need to fear of any hidden spike in cases and that the disease is in control.

Director, National Centre for Disease Control, SK Singh said surveillance is being used to gather epidemiological intelligence in 734 districts and 37 states and required measures taken accordingly.

Community surveillance is the weapon being used in most countries to fight COVID-19, so that infected persons can be quickly identified and put in quarantine or isolation so as to stop the spread, he said.

Around 9.45 lakh people are under the surveillance network at present, prompt samplings of these people are taken upon detection of symptoms, he added.

The surveillance mechanism started functioning even before the first COVID-19 case was reported in India, which played an important role in helping us contain the spread of the infection, Singh said.

During initial period of lockdown, doubling time of cases decreased since people infected already were being detected, later it improved as lockdown put a brake on the spread of the infection, he added.

Meanwhile, Union Minister of Health and Family Welfare Harsh Vardhan interacted today with all the state health ministers and health secretaries through a video conference to review the preparedness and actions taken for management of COVID-19.

He urged the states to focus on surveillance, house-to-house active case finding, early identification of cases and proper clinical management to ensure that the patients get timely treatment and mortality is reduced. He also urged the health ministers to personally review the measures being undertaken against stigma and discrimination of doctors and other frontline health workers, as also patients who have COVID-19 or those that have recovered.

Earlier, Harsh Vardhan also interacted with the Health Ministers of all member countries of the World Health Organization (WHO) through a video conference and shared India’s journey so far in management of COVID-19 and also highlighted that India's management efforts are based on the twin principles of community engagement and containment efforts, the government said in a statement.