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India crosses 2 million COVID-19 cases

As Covid-19 cases in India breached the 2 million mark on Thursday. India currently stands at second position in the world in term of covid-19 cases and only behind Brazil and the US. India also being the second most populous country of the world is also recording a fast increase in covid-19 cases.
“It is not even one percent of population therefore country like India where population is more than 1300 million it is expected to have high number,” said Dr Jugal Kishore, professor and head, department of community medicine, Safdarjung Hospital.

“If we do more test could be more cases will be added. What is important that mortality should be avoided and early detection can do that work by effective management,” he said.

India recorded its first covid-19 case on 30 January and the disease burden started growing. The country’s covid count reached 1 million on July 16 which further doubled to 2 million in three weeks.

“The spread of the virus in rural districts is ominous. Till June, the virus was predominantly in the urban areas with broken health systems. With the pandemic going to smaller cities and towns, without modern healthcare facilities, the situation is grim,” said Amir Ullah Khan, Senior Research Fellow a Rajiv Gandhi Institute for Contemporary Studies (RGICS), a policy think tank.

“It won’t be surprising if we surpass the US numbera by the year end. We need the state to act now, spend money generously on testing and putting into place location specific lockdowns,” he said.

Public health experts have said that given India’s population size, there will be large number of positive case and preventive measures are the only option for now till a vaccine is available.

.”The virus will continue its march till we get a safe and effective vaccine. The only preventive measure presently available are use of face mask, keeping safe distance, washing hands, respiratory etiquettes. These are all connected with changing behaviour of community. This is not easy and takes time,” said Lalit Kant, a scientist and former head of epidemiology and communicable diseases at the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR).

“We have a tried and tested strategy of testing, isolating, tracing and testing. We need to just carry on with that. In States where large number of infections are reported, it is essential that testing is ramped up,” he said adding that in some of the more populous states equitable access to healthcare is an issue which may delay early medical attention. It is great that India has been to keep its mortality rate low. This give confidence,” he said.

Meanwhile, the total recoveries of covid-19 patients have jumped to 13,28,336 with 46,121 patients being discharged in the last 24 hours taking the recovery rate to 67.62% . With such consistent increase in recoveries, the gap between recovered patients and active covid-19 cases has reached 7,32,835, the union health ministry said.

“The actual case load of the country is the active cases (5,95,501) which is 30.31% of the total positive cases. They are under medical supervision either in hospitals or in home isolation. The Case Fatality Rate stands at 2.07%,” said the health ministry adding that the active cases as a percentage of total cases have seen a significant drop from 34.17% on 24th July 2020 to 30.31% as on today. – Livemint

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