Growth in Coronavirus cases ‘linear, not exponential,’ says Govt as India records 21,700 cases, 686 deaths

Growth in Coronavirus cases has been “more or less linear, and not exponential,” said the Government on Thursday as India has crossed the 21,000-mark.

Environment Secretary and Chairman, Empowered Group-2, CK Mishra at a media briefing said in last 30 days of lockdown, India has been able to cut transmission, minimise spread, decrease doubling rate and consistently ramp up testing. He added that India has utilized this time to prepare for the future.

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He further said that as of April 22, more than five lakh tests have been conducted. “If a rough calculation is done, it is about 33 times in 30 days,” Mishra said, but added, “This is not enough and we need to ramp up testing in this country”.

Showing a graphical representation of the situation, Mishra said India’s story lies at the bottom of the graph close to South Korea, a country which has been able to curb the spread of COVID-19 to a large extent.

Meanwhile, the total number of Coronavirus cases has reached 21,700 including 686 deaths. 1229 new infections and 34 deaths have been reported in the last 24 hours.

Briefing the media, Health Ministry, Joint Secretary, Lav Agarwal said that it is difficult to predict if India’s peak will arrive by May 3. He, however, stated that the situation is very stable and India has been able to flatten the curve.

Positivity rate has been 4.5 per cent throughout, the health ministry official said.

Agarwal further informed that as of Thursday, 12 districts have not reported a fresh case in the last 28 days or more. There are now 78 districts (23 States/UTs) that have not reported any fresh cases during the last 14 days.

In its daily briefing on the Coronavirus outbreak, the Government also 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 from the infection as a percentage of the total number of cases, has been increasing since last week, when it was 9.99 per cent.