More on Covid-19

When PM Modi announced a total lockdown of the country exactly a month ago, there were around 500 Covid-19 cases in India. But there were clear signs that the numbers were going to shoot up. The average daily growth in cases was 21.6% on March 24, which since dropped to 8.1%. Had we continued to grow at that rate, the number of cases would have crossed 2 lakh by now.But a growth rate of 8.1% three days into the fifth week of lockdown is still higher than what the worst-hit countries achieved after locking down for the same period. While Germany brought down the growth rate to 2%, the US was at 4.8%.If India continues to grow at the current rate, we will have close to 40,000 cases by the end of next week, which would swell to almost 70,000 in a fortnight, and near 2.5 lakh by the end of May.But given how some states have managed to lower their growth rate (Kerala is growing at 1.8%, lower than Germany), the average growth rate could well fall in the coming days.Even a small drop makes a huge difference to the total numbers. For instance, if India manages to bring down its growth rate to 6%, a month later, we would have to deal with about 1.3 lakh cases; at 5%, the total number won’t even cross one lakh.