Despite some improvement during lockdown period, India has surpassed China in COVID-19 cases. India now has 85,761 cases as against 82,033 in Dragon country. India’s doubling time is just 13 days as against 7,966.2 days in China, 43.4 days in US, 14 days in Russia, 13.3 days in Brazil. Alarmingly, going by these figures, India tops in lowest doubling time in 15 major countries with most virus cases. India says domestic manufacturers have reached production capacity of nearly 3 lakh PPEs per day and about 3 lakh N-95 masks per day. This is sufficient to meet the country’s requirement in the immediate future.

Comparatively higher doubling rate raises concerns that if India further relaxes restrictions after Lockdown 3.0, it may lead to new virus cases once again. However, at least partial recovery of economy is considered the need of the hour. At the same time, the Centre is preparing to face any situation if virus transmissions once again report a spurt.

Manufacture of ventilators by domestic manufacturers has also started. Union Health Ministry reports say that a total of 27,920 people were cured of virus in India till now. In the last 24 hours, 1,685 patients were cured. Total recovery rate now is 34.06 per cent. The lockdown has good impact on doubling rate which improved from 3.4 days in pre-lockdown week to 12.9 days last week.