Covid-19 cases doubling in every 10 days: Govt

New Delhi, April 24 (IANS) The Central government said on Wednesday that the number of Covid-19 cases in the country is now doubling in every 10 days, adding that had the lockdown not been imposed on time, the number of cases would have sky-rocketed to over one lakh by now."Had we not taken the decision to impose nationwide lockdown, we would have had around one lakh Covid-19 cases by now. This is a reasonable estimate," said Niti Aayog member V.K. Paul.Paul, who is also the Chairman of the government's Empowered Committee- 1, said the "cases are now doubling in every 10 days.""As on March 21, our doubling time of cases was three days. Results started showing on March 23, due to travel restrictions imposed earlier. On April 6, further slowing of doubling rate became visible, thanks to the nationwide lockdown," he added.He further added that the decision to impose the lockdown was timely and asserted that the curve has begun to flatten."Nationwide lockdown helped take us away from the exponential growth curve and thereby contain the growth of Covid-19 cases," he said.Paul further added that surveillance has been a great strength in containing the spread of the virus. "Besides containing the spread, augmenting testing and improving preparedness, the nation has brought about a massive behavioural change through a ‘Jan Andolan' (mass movement)," he said.Meanwhile, the number of confirmed cases in the country has crossed the 23,000-mark, with 718 deaths. Globally, the number of cases has crossed 2.7 million while the death toll has mounted to 1.9 lakh.
--IANS aka/arm