New Delhi: Gujarat on Friday became the sixth state to cross the 1,000 mark in coronavirus cases whose all India tally jumped by over one thousand for the fourth straight day to surpass 14,000 even as the Centre said the doubling time of the infection rate has slowed down in the last one week.
As it prepared to distribute five lakh rapid antibody testing kits, which arrived from China on Thursday, to states for districts with high case burden, the Union Health Ministry said it took 6.2 days for coronavirus cases to double in the last one week as against three days before the nationwide lockdown came into effect from March 25.
"Before the lockdown, the doubling rate of coronavirus cases was 3 days. Going by the number of cases in the last seven days, the doubling rate has been 6.2 days. In 19 states and Union Territories the doubling rate is less than the national average," Lav Agarwal, joint secretary in the ministry, told reporters.
The total number of coronavirus infections in Gujarat touched 1,021 on Friday after 92 new cases were reported, while the death toll reached 38 with the addition of two fatalities, health officials said in Ahmedabad.
Principal Secretary, Health, Jayanti Ravi attributed the sudden spurt in the cases to intensive surveillance and testing in coronavirus hotspots, including those which have been placed under curfew till April 21 in the walled city of Ahmedabad.
Maharashtra(3,236), Delhi(1,640), Tamil Nadu(1,323), Rajasthan(1,193) and Madhya Pradesh(1,164) were the other states where the number of COVID-19 cases had surpassed the 1,000 mark.
In Mumbai alone, these cases rose to 2,120 with 77 more persons testing positive, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) said, adding the number in the Dharavi slum area reached 101.
COVID-19 cases in the country rose by 1,076 and 32 deaths were reported in 24 hours, taking the tally to 13,835 and the fatalities to 452, according to the latest Health ministry data. A total of 1,767 patients have recovered, it said.
According to a PTI tally in the night based on reports from states, the total number of cases was 14,173 and 1,896 had recovered while the death toll stood at 479.
The COVID-19 cases had jumped by 1,463; 1,118, and 1,043 on the three days respectively from Tuesday this week, according to official data from the Health ministry and the states.
Agarwal maintained there had been a 40 per cent decline in the growth of new cases.
The average growth factor of cases from April 1 stood at 1.2, whereas between March 15 and 31 it was 2.1. This decline of 40 per cent was due to an increase in testing, including that of cases with severe acute respiratory infections (SARI) and influenza-like illness (ILI). he said.
The official also said that India has been doing better than many other countries on the outcome ratio, which is the number of recoveries from coronavirus infection versus the number of deaths.
"If 80 per cent of the patients in India are recovering and in 20 per cent cases deaths are being reported, then by that standard India has been doing a little better than many other nations on the outcome ratio."
Of the total 452 deaths listed by the health ministry, Maharashtra tops the tally with 194 fatalities, followed by Madhya Pradesh at 57, Gujarat and Delhi at 38 each and Telangana 18.
Tamil Nadu has reported 15 deaths while Andhra Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh reported 14 fatalities each.
Punjab and Karnataka reported 13 deaths each.
Rajasthan has registered 11 deaths while West Bengal reported 10 deaths fatalities. Some states have reported less than 10 deaths.
Despite being under a strict curfew since late March and enjoying the reputation of being India's cleanest city, Indore in Madhya Pradesh has acquired a dubious distinction of recording a very high coronavirus mortality rate.
Till Friday morning, the city recorded 842 COVID-19 cases, and the 47 deaths since the outbreak began less than a month ago are 10.75 per cent of the country's fatality rate.
The 5.58 per cent death rate from the cases in Indore is itself above the national average, officials said.
As on Friday, there were 155 containment areas, covering almost 6 lakh residents in a city of 30 lakh, and curfew continues to be in force since March 25 when the first COVID-19 case was detected in the city considered as the state's commercial capital.
Meanwhile, authorities continued to maintain there was no threat of community transmission in the city.
"The new COVID-19 cases are mainly of those who are either related to or have known the earlier patients. Such persons are already quarantined and, therefore, the question of community transmission does not arise," said Chief Medical and Health Officer Praveen Jadia.
At his media briefing, Agarwal said 1,919 dedicated COVID-19 hospitals with 1.73 lakh isolation beds and 21,800 ICU beds have been readied till now.
Agarwal said a Group of Ministers held a meeting on Friday to chalk out a roadmap about the lockdown and reviewed efforts of science and technology institutes in diagnosis, vaccines, drugs, hospital equipment accessories and general wellness.
Head of Epidemiology and Communicable diseases at Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) Dr Raman R Gangakhedkar said 3,19,400 COVID-19 tests have been conducted so far in the country.
"Out of these, 28,340 tests were conducted on Thursday, of which 23,932 were done at 183 laboratories under ICMR network and the rest at 80 private labs," he added.
Union Science and Technology Minister Harsh Vardhan, meanwhile, said the Thiruvananthapuram--based Sree Chitra Tirunal Institute for Medical Science and Technology in Kerala has developed a low-cost diagnostic test kit that can confirm COVID-19 infection in two hours.
The kit can detect coronavirus in 10 minutes, and the sample to result in time will be less than two hours, Vardhan tweeted.
A total of 30 samples can be tested in a single batch in a single machine, he added.
The Health Ministry also said containment operations will be scaled down if no secondary positive case of COVID-19 is reported from a quarantine zone for at least four weeks after the last confirmed test has been isolated and all his contacts have been followed up for 28 days.
According to the ministry's "Updated containment plan for large outbreaks COVID-19", a containment operation (large outbreak or cluster) is deemed to be over 28 days from the date the last case in that zone tests negative.
The plan said the authorities will do extensive contact tracing and active search for cases in containment zone, test all suspect cases and high-risk contacts isolate all suspect or confirmed cases, implement social distancing measures and intensive risk communication as part of the cluster containment strategy.
"The objective of this containment plan is to stop the chain of transmission thus reducing the morbidity and mortality due to COVID-19," the ministry said.
Karnataka has scaled up the number of coronavirus tests by five times, said Medical Education Minister Sudhakar K, who regretted that some of those who died due to COVID-19 pandemic could have saved their lives had they opted to avail the treatment early. The state has recorded 13 deaths.
A staggering 38 new positive cases have been confirmed in the state taking the total number of affected to 353, the Health department said.
This is the highest single-day tally so far.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah said the Modi government is leaving no stone unturned to tackle the coronavirus crisis.
"Modi government is leaving no stone unturned in this fight against COVID-19, ensuring a minimum disruption in people's lives while planning for a strong and stable India in days ahead," he tweeted.
