India records lowest daily growth rate in Covid-19 cases on Saturday since crossing 100 cases

NEW DELHI: India recorded a six per cent growth in new cases on a single day, from 8am Friday to 8am Saturday, which is the lowest daily growth rate recorded since the country crossed 100 cases, the government said on Saturday.Since Friday morning, an increase of 1,429 cases has been reported, taking the total number of Covid-19 confirmed cases to 24,506 from 23,077 reported on Friday by the health ministry. The death toll due to Covid-19 rose to 775.According to government data, the current death rate is around 3.1% while the recovery rate is more than 20% per cent, which is comparatively better than several countries and may be taken as a positive effect of the lockdown in the country, along with the cluster management and containment strategy.The average doubling rate of the country is 9.1 days as of now, the health ministry said. So far, 5,062 people have been cured with a recovery rate of 20.66 per cent. The government has said the situation is under control with timely measures and implementation of lockdown which helped improve the doubling rate from 5.2 days in the last week of March to almost 10 days in last three days.According to NITI Aayog member Dr V K Paul , who also heads an empowered group on emergency response for Covid-19, timely imposition of nationwide lockdown along with active contact-tracing and aggressive surveillance led the change in growth trajectory of India's Covid-19 cases. "The curve has begun to flatten. Had we not taken the decision of clamping the nationwide lockdown, we would have had around 1 lakh Covid-19 cases by now, as per a reasonable estimate. Now, the outbreak is under control,” Dr Paul had said on Friday.The government is now working out a strategy for post- May 3 when the lockdown is supposed to be lifted, at least partially. The government has indicated that it has built capacity to ramp up testing of samples, if required. Besides, the lockdown time was used to create hospital infrastructure dedicated for Covid-19 patients. In case of any surge, once the lockdown is lifted and movement of people starts, this health system will play a significant role.