Case tally

fessor of epidemiology and public health, Indian Institute of Public Health, Bhubaneswar. “We have more active cases (than in China) because the growth rate has been slow. The disease appears to be less severe in India; we still don’t have scientific evidence on why this is happening, it could be cross infections, it could be innate immunity or higher humidity and temperature, we still don’t know,” said Dutta.

India’s recovery rate improved to 33.6%, up from 32.83% on Wednesday.

Deaths in India are two per one million population, compared to three deaths per million in China. Data from the 50 countries with the most cases shows that deaths per million are the lowest in the two most populated nations in the world, except for Bangladesh. “If performance of hospitals is being compared, case fatality rate matters, but to assess an epidemic, state of the epidemic is being assessed, deaths per million is the statistic that tells us whether a district or state is in a safer zone than another,” said Reddy.

With most states moving towards a staggered lifting of the lockdown, experts say the progress of the outbreak over the next few weeks will depend on the lessons learned so far. An epidemiologist at the health ministry, requesting anonymity, said: “The focus for India now is not rising cases, but the rate of spread of the disease. Covid-19 is here to stay, cases will go up; we have to be prepared for managing severe disease. India’s R0 is 1.4, we have to work to bring it below one to reverse the pandemic.”