The government on Tuesday hailed India’s Covid-19 recovery rate, which stands at 78.28%, and said it was one of the highest in the world citing data from the Johns Hopkins University’s coronavirus disease tracker.
Balram Bhargava, the Indian Council of Medical Research’s (ICMR) director general, credited the “very effective” lockdown for the surging number of recoveries in the country. Bhargava said during a press briefing that India learnt from the experience of nations that suffered high fatalities from the viral disease. He said the country was able to “distribute the curve” of the infection as well as avoid the “huge peak” those countries had in terms of deaths.
As of Tuesday, 3,859,399 people had recovered from Covid-19 and the country’s recovery tally exceeded the active cases by 2,869,338.
On observing the Covid-19 situation in European countries and then acting accordingly, Bhargava said, “Fortunately, we took learnings from that in India and we were able to, what we call, ‘distribute the curve’. We distributed the curve in such a way that we did not have those large number of deaths and that was attributable scientifically because of a very effective lockdown that was imposed in late March, April and May. So, we did not really have a huge peak from that perspective.”
He also said that the chances of reinfection are “very, very rare” but it may happen as it did in Hong Kong. However, he dismissed the matter as not a very serious concern.
During the briefing, Union health secretary Rajesh Bhushan said there are 14 states and Union territories (UTs) in the country where the number of active Covid-19 cases are less than 5,000. He also said that India’s cases per million population are amongst the lowest in the world, which stands at 3,573 while the global average is 3,704 while deaths per million population at 58 is also amongst the lowest in the world and the global average is 118.
