Country achieved a lot in its fight against novel coronavirus: Centre

As India completed a month under lockdown, the Centre claimed that the country has achieved a lot in its fight against novel coronavirus. India has 12 districts that did not have a fresh case in the last 28 days or more. There are now 78 districts that have not reported any fresh cases during the last 14 days.

New Delhi: As India entered the 30th day of the nationwide lockdown on Thursday, the Centre said the country has achieved a lot in its fight against novel coronavirus.

CK Mishra, a member of one of the 12 COVID Empowered Groups, set up by the Centre, told the media that India had done three crucial things in the last 30 days of lockdown.

CK Mishra said, "All thanks to the people of India, we have been able to cut transmission, minimize spread, and increase doubling time for COVID-19 cases. Second, we have ramped up testing and third, prepared for the future if the virus spreads further."

He also said that the country has been able to ramp up our testing consistently. "We have taken several measures to ensure that we remain more or less stable in the last 30 days,” he added.

The top administrative official said that India had achieved half a million COVID-19 tests. The number of tests in India has been conducted 33 times since March 23; there has also been a rise in the number of positive cases.

"On March 23, we had done 14,915 tests across the country, and on April 22, we have done more than 5 lakh tests. In a rough calculation, it is about 33 times in 30 days. This is not enough, and we need to ramp testing in India,” Environment Secretary and Chairman of the Empowered Group-2," Mishra added.

Lav Aggarwal, senior health ministry joint secretary, said that in last 24 hours, 1409 positive cases have been reported, which takes our total confirmed cases to 21,393.

He further said that India has 12 districts that did not have a fresh case in the last 28 days or more. There are now 78 districts (23 States/UT) that have not reported any fresh cases during the last 14 days.

He also highlighted that India has 4257 people who have recovered from the disease. In the last 24 hours, 388 have been cured of the disease.