COVID-19 doubling rate dropped from 3 to 6.2 days after lockdown: Heath Ministry

The Union Health Ministry on Friday said the doubling rate of Covid-19 positive cases in India has dropped to 6.2 days instead of the earlier three days.

“Before lockdown, the doubling rate of Covid-19 cases was about 3 days, For the past 7 days, the doubling rate of cases now stands at 6.2 days,” Lav Aggarwal, a senior Health Ministry official said.

“The doubling rate in 19 states and union territories (Kerala, Uttarakhand, Haryana, Ladakh, Himachal, Chandigarh, Puducherry, Bihar, Odisha, Telangana, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Delhi, UP, Karnataka, J&K, Punjab, Assam, Tripura) are presently showing a higher doubling rate, which is better than the national average, which reflects that rate of increase of cases in these places has been reduced to some extent,” the Ministry said.

An average Growth Factor of 1.2 since 1st April 2020 as compared to 2.1 in the two weeks proceeding that (15th March to 31st March) is observed, which is about a 40% decline (2.1-1.2)/2.1 in Growth Factor, the Ministry official said.

An increase of 1007 new cases and 23 new deaths has been reported since yesterday, with a total of 13,387 confirmed cases for COVID-19 in the country. As many as 1749 persons have been cured/discharged after recovery.

Additionally, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has shared forecasting tools with States/District administrators for better planning of infrastructure across different COVID facilities based on the assessment of caseloads.

Cumulatively, 1919 dedicated COVID-19 hospitals have been identified at both Centre and State level which includes:

  • 672 Dedicated COVID Hospitals (DCH) (with 107830 isolation beds and 14742 ICU beds),
  • 1247 Dedicated COVID Health Centres (DCHC) (with total of 65916 isolation beds and 7064 ICU beds)

Hence a total of 1919 facilities having 1,73,746 isolation beds and total ICU beds 21,806 are available.