Maggi banned in Delhi for 15 days

New Delhi, May 22: The number of COVID-19 cases averted due to the lockdown is in the range of 14-29 lakh, while the number of lives saved is between 37,000 and 78,000, the government said on Friday citing various studies, and asserted that the unprecedented shutdown has paid “rich dividends” in the fight against the pandemic.

The lockdown in India has been a timely, graded, proactive and pre-emptive public health measure to fight the COVID-19 pandemic and has been part and parcel of the government’s overall strategy, Dr V K Paul, Member (Health), NITI Aayog, and Chairman, Empowered Group 1, said at a media briefing on the COVID-19 situation.

The government imposed the nationwide lockdown from March 25 to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus and it is currently in its fourth phase.

Like the number of cases, the growth rate of number of COVID-19 deaths too has fallen significantly due to the lockdown, marking a notable difference between pre-lockdown and post-lockdown situations, he said.

At the briefing, Pravin Srivastava, Secretary, Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation gave model-based estimates on COVID-19 cases and deaths which have been prevented due to the lockdown.

As per Boston Consulting Group's model, the lockdown saved between 1.2 lakh and 2.1 lakh lives, while the number of COVID-19 cases averted is between 36 lakh and 70 lakh, he said.

According to Public Health Foundation of India, nearly 78,000 lives have been saved due to the lockdown, Srivastava said.

Citing a model by two independent economists, he said that around 23 lakh COVID-19 cases and 68,000 deaths have been averted due to the lockdown.

Some independent experts, including retired scientists, have calculated that around 15.9 lakh cases and 51,000 deaths have been averted due to the lockdown, Srivastava said.

A joint study by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation and the Indian Statistical Institute found that around 20 lakh COVID-19 cases and 54,000 deaths were averted due to lockdown, he said.

The number of COVID-19 cases averted due to the lockdown is in the range of 14-29 lakh, while the number of lives saved is between 37,000 and 78,000, the official said.

“We are fully confident that the lockdown, with full public cooperation, has reaped rich dividends,” Srivastava said.

The strong defence of the lockdown, comes a day after the health ministry said the period of lockdown has been gainfully utilized to ramp up the health infrastructure, with around 3,027 dedicated COVID-19 hospitals and 7,013 care centres being readied across the country to fight the disease.

The announcement on Thursday came after some media reports questioned the country's preparedness to deal with the highly infectious disease.

"There are reports in a section of the media about some decisions of the government regarding the lockdown implementation and response to COVID-19 management. The period of the lockdown has been gainfully utilised to ramp up the health infrastructure in the country," the ministry had said.

Addressing the press briefing on Friday, joint secretary in the health ministry Lav Agarwal said 48,534 COVID-19 patients, which is about 41 per cent of the total cases, have recovered so far. As many as 3,234 patients have recovered in the last 24 hours, he said’

The COVID-19 mortality rate has dropped from 3.13 per cent on May 19 to 3.02 per cent as focus was on containment measures andclinical management of cases, Agarwal said.

An ICMR official said 27,55,714 tests for COVID-19 have been conducted till 1 pm Friday with 1,03,829 tests done in one day. Over 1 lakh tests for COVID-19 have been done each day for the last four days, the official said.

The growth rate of novel coronavirus cases witnessed a steep decline from Apr 4 when lockdown put a brake on the speed of increase of cases, V K Paul said.

The number of COVID-19 cases would have risen exponentially had the lockdown not been implemented, he said, adding that the doubling rate of cases was 3.4 days when the lockdown started and it is 13.3 days at present.

The COVID-19 outbreak in India has remained confined to limited areas with 80 per cent of active cases in just five states, Paul said

He said around 80 pc of COVID-19 deaths have been in Maharashtra, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal and Delhi. 

Mumbai, Jan 28: Flag carrier Air India has kept one of its 423-seater jumbo planes ready in Mumbai for the evacuation of Indian citizens from Wuhan in China in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak in that country, an official source said on Tuesday.

The airline is awaiting necessary approvals from the ministries of external affairs and health to operate the special flight, the source said. The health ministry's nod is required because the operating crew has to fly in a virus outbreak territory.

"We have kept a Boeing 747-400 ready in Mumbai to operate an evacuation flight to China whenever we get a go ahead from the government," the source said.

Some 250 Indians are to be evacuated.

At a meeting of top secretaries called by the cabinet secretary on Monday, the government decided to be prepared for possible evacuation of Indian nationals in Wuhan.

Accordingly, Ministry of External Affairs will make a request to the Chinese authorities for evacuation of Indian nationals, mostly students, stuck in Wuhan city. The Ministry of Civil Aviation and Ministry of Health will make arrangements for transport and quarantine facilities respectively, an official release said on Monday.

Wuhan along 12 other cities have been completely sealed by the Chinese authorities to stop the virus from spreading. The death toll climbed to 80 with 2,744 confirmed cases.

New Delhi, Apr 8: The death toll due to the novel coronavirus rose to 149 and the number of cases to 5,194 in the country on Wednesday, according to the Union Health Ministry.

While the number of active COVID-19 cases is 4,643, as many as 401 people were cured and discharged and one had migrated, it said.

The total number of cases include 70 foreign nationals.

According to the ministry's data updated at 9 a.m., 25 new deaths have been reported since Tuesday.

Sixteen deaths were reported from Maharashtra, two each from Delhi, West Bengal, Haryana and Tamil Nadu and one from Andhra Pradesh.

Maharashtra has reported the most coronavirus deaths at 64, followed by Gujarat  and Madhya Pradesh at 13 each and Delhi at 9.

Telengana, Punjab and Tamil Nadu have reported seven fatalities each.

West Bengal has registered five deaths, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh have reported four each, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Rajasthan have recorded three deaths each.

Two deaths each have been reported from Jammu and Kashmir and Kerala.

Bihar, Himachal Pradesh and Odisha reported one fatality each, according to the health ministry data.

However, a PTI tally of figures reported by various states as on Tuesday 9.45 p.m. showed 5,192 testing positive across the country and at least 162 deaths.

There has been a lag in the Union Health Ministry figures, compared to the numbers announced by different states, which officials attribute to procedural delays in assigning the cases to individual states.

The highest number of confirmed cases in the country are from Maharashtra at 1018, followed by Tamil Nadu at 690 and Delhi with 576 cases.

Telengana has reported 364 COVID-19 cases followed by Kerala at 336.

Rajasthan has 328 cases, Uttar Pradesh has 326 and Andhra Pradesh reported 305 coronavirus cases.

Novel coronavirus cases have risen to 229 in Madhya Pradesh, 175 in Karnataka and 165 in Gujarat.

Haryana has 147 cases, Jammu and Kashmir has 116, West Bengal has 99 and Punjab has 91 positive patients so far. Odisha has reported 42 coronavirus cases.

Thirty- eight people were infected with the virus in Bihar while Uttarakhand has 31 patients and Assam 27.

Chandigarh  and Himachal Pradesh have 18 cases each while Ladakh has 14 positive patients so far.

Ten cases each have been reported from the Andaman and Nicobar Islands and Chhattisgarh. 

Goa has reported seven COVID-19 infections, followed by Puducherry at five cases. Jharkhand has reported four cases and Manipur two. 

Tripura, Mizoram and Arunachal Pradesh have reported one case each.

"State-wise distribution is subject to further verification and reconciliation," the ministry said on its website.