Indian Covid-19 rate far lower: Monitor
NEW DELHI: The death toll due to Coronavirus infection in India has soared to 50, the health ministry said on Thursday. Total confirmed Covid-19 cases in India stand at 1,965.
One relief is that at least 151 people have been discharged following treatment in hospitals across India.
The ministry updated on Thursday morning that nine fresh deaths were reported — four from Maharashtra, three from Madhya Pradesh and one each from Andhra Pradesh and Punjab.
The Union Ministry of Home Affairs on Thursday wrote a letter to all chief secretaries of all states asking them to take strict action on violation of lockdown measures. Union Home Secretary Ajay Bhalla said the penal provisions should be widely circulated. For violation of lockdown measure, action shall be taken by law-enforcement authorities.
At the same time, a global monitoring site said India is much better than many other countries when it comes to the infection count. It has only one positive case of coronavirus for every million of its population, while the global average is over 120 cases/million, says data available on Worldometers, a website that records all coronavirus cases across the world and follows them to their outcome.
India fares even better on “deaths per million” statistics with a figure of 0.04 against the world average of over 6 deaths per million.
Several European countries including Italy, Spain, Belgium, Netherlands, France, Switzerland and the UK top the list of countries with most deaths per million, giving an indication of the high intensity of fatalities in these countries. Iran is the only Asian country among the top 20, if one goes by deaths/million calculation.
The United States, that has so far registered the most number of coronavirus victims, is 21st on the list. If one were to look at infections/million of population, India is ranked even further lower at the 178th spot.
The authorities have also launched a natiowide search to hunt the 6,000 people who attended the Nizamuddin Tablighi Jamaat congregation, as more than 450 fresh cases of infection emerged on Wednesday.
With the lockdown, India has been able to considerably slow the progress of Covid-19 across the country. However, India has still under-diagnosed, driven by higher suspicion for testing, insufficient testing and the technical complexity of testing.