India’s Covid-19 cases nearly double in week, could hit 10,000 by end of 21-day lockdown

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Updated: Apr 02, 2020 14:07 IST

Coronavirus cases in the country are on the rapid rise, showing no sign of abating. A look at the historical figures points to the fact that the cases have more than doubled in India in the past week.

Last Thursday, Covid-19 cases in the country were under 700. This Thursday, the cases have nearly jumped to 2,000 with 1,965 patients. The figure includes 1,764 active cases, 150 recoveries and 50 deaths.

At this pace of increase in fresh coronavirus cases, the number of patients could go beyond 10,000 by the end of the 21-day lockdown, Hindustan Times’ business publication Mint reported.

It will be too early to predict whether the rate of the increase in coronavirus cases in the country will pace up or hit a plateau in days to come. The government is also trying to push the testing numbers which could further have an impact on the number of fresh cases.

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In a conversation with Hindustan Times’s Amandeep Shukla, Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan talked about ‘flattening the curve’ and said that it may take anywhere between 2 to 4 weeks to bend the curve.

“There have been only a few sporadic cases, which do not indicate a wider community-wide spread of infection at the national level,” the minister said.

India reported 437 new Covid-19 cases between March 31 and April 1. As many as 131 new coronavirus cases have been reported across the country in the last 12 hours, the health ministry announced today.

With a staggering 335 patients, Maharashtra leads the Covid-19 tally in the country followed by Kerala which has reported 265 cases so far as per the central government figures.