India would have seen 8.2 lakh COVID-19 cases by April 15 if there was no lockdown, says Centre

While the government said that the cases before March 25 did grew at a peak CGR of 28.9 per cent, no explanation was offered for the CGR 41 per cent considered for the worst case scenario.

Published: 12th April 2020 09:03 AM |

A deserted view of Delhi Jn. railway station during ongoing lockdown.

By Express News Service

NEW DELHI: The ongoing three-week lockdown prevented COVID-19 from spiraling out of control, else the cases of infection would have reached 8.2 lakh by April 15 in the worst-case scenario, the Centre said on Saturday. In the daily briefing, the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare presented two hypothetical scenarios of the growth of novel coronavirus in the country if measures were not taken to contain it.

"A statistical analysis of rate of growth suggests that if there was no lockdown or containment measure, then the cases growing at compound growth rate of 41 per cent could have resulted in 8.2 lakh cases by April 15," said Lav Agarwal, joint secretary in the 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 national lockdown. It estimates 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 per cent — which was seen before the implementation of lockdown — had sustained.

"Before lockdown, the highest rate of growth of cases was at around 28.9 %. At that rate, perhaps, the numbers could have risen to 1.2 lakh cases by April 15. 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.

While the government said that the cases before March 25 did grew at a peak CGR of 28.9 per cent, no explanation was offered for the CGR 41 per cent considered for the worst case scenario. The third scenario is the current situation under which there are now at least 7,529 positive cases and 242 deaths. This reduced figure compared to the other two scenarios has been made possible only due to the twin impact of containment measures and the lockdown, Agarwal said.