India has registered the biggest spike in the cases of coronavirus on Friday with 1,752 new cases taking the total to 23, 452 with 723 deaths, which is 37 more in last 24 hours, the Health Ministry said.

The government said that a total of 4,748 people recovered from the COVID-19 so far. The share of recovered patients is 20.57 per cent of the total active cases.

Health Ministry said that there are 80 districts now where no new cases have been reported in the last 14 days, suggesting the chain of transmission has been broken.

“Till date, there are 80 districts in the country that have reported no new cases in the last 14 days. The chain of transmission is being broken by the collective efforts of people and administration. We should see that the green zone districts maintain the status of no new cases and also, new districts get added into this category,” senior health ministry official Lav Aggarwal said during the daily press briefing.

Meanwhile, NITI Aayog said that the lockdown has been effective in containing the spread of the virus.

“Our analysis shows the lockdown has been effective in slowing the doubling rate of COVID-19 and saved lives. The lockdown decision was timely as the around 23,000 cases in India today could have been 73,000,” Dr VK Paul, Niti Aayog member, was quoted as saying by news agency ANI.

Ministry said the doubling rate of coronavirus cases has improved to 10 days, from 7.5 days reported earlier this week. Earlier, the ministry had said the doubling rate had improved from 3.4 days before the lockdown to 7.5 days.

It suggested that the lockdown enforced since last month to check the spread of the highly contagious disease is a success.

The doubling rate is a parameter to show how fast the infection is spreading.

The government had imposed a nationwide lockdown on March 24 (effective from midnight of March 25) till April 14. The lockdown was further extended till May 3 after consultation with the Chief Ministers of all states.

When the lockdown was imposed, the cases stood at 550 which increased significantly even after the shutdown.

The government has claimed that the cases could have exceeded over 8 lakh if the lockdown would not have been imposed.