India May Have Hit 8 Lakh: Consulate in Toronto Say’s
India is taking its experience in dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic, to the world and asserting that without the lockdown, India may have faced 8.2 lakh cases of coronavirus infection instead of the current load of approximately 11,000.
India’s Consulate in Toronto released this data to media in Canada including those serving the diaspora community, among a number of other presentations relating to the country’s effort in minimising the impact of Covid-19.
In an accompanying letter, India’s Consul General in Toronto Apoorva Srivastava said, “The massive lockdown in the country has produced results.
Our modelling estimates posit that without the lockdown, the country could have had up to 820,000 cases by April 15. With the lockdown, we have limited these to around 11,000 cases and have managed to contain 80 per cent of the cases to just 78 districts in India.”
Explaining why this information package was being distributed at this time, she added in a letter accompanying the documents, “We are sharing our experience of how we are managing the threat in a country of 1.3 billion people with our friends and partners.”
The cases that would have been recorded by April 15 without a lockdown or containment measures would have matched Italy’s progression, and containment measures alone without a lockdown may have led to 1.2 lakh cases, as per a projection taking peak growth rate before the lockdown.
Interestingly, the 20-page presentation also underlines the role of super spreaders in compounding the crisis in the Country. One slide is named ‘Steep Rise in cases due to Tablighi Jamaat Incident’.
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The presentation also points out that screening and isolation of passengers started in India on January 18, 12 days prior to the first COVID-19 case being reported in the country.
It also shows that India imposed a partial lockdown after 52 days and at Stage II, with 451active cases, as against other countries like the United States and Italy, which did so mostly at Stage III, that of community outbreak.
The complete lockdown came 55 days after the outbreak.
