Coronavirus pandemic: India cases still low, ICMR says ‘can’t say we are testing less’

Team Suno Neta Thursday 16th of April 2020 11:02 PM

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New Delhi: The official number of people infected by the new coronavirus, COVID-19, in India remains well below 13,000 even as the country enters into its 24^th day of lockdown, on Thursday. However, after concerns shown from various quarters that the numbers could be much higher because of the low rate of testing for the infection in the country, the Indian Council of Medical Research sought to allay the fears.

On Thursday, an ICMR official, Dr RR Gangakhedar, said it will be incorrect to say India is testing less. Dr Gangakhedar, while speaking to reporters said, “In Japan, one out of every 11.7 people tested came (coronavirus) positive; for Italy, the number is 6.7; in US, it’s 5.3; in UK, it’s 3.4. Here (in India), we get one positive case for every 24 tests. Can’t say we are testing less.”

The number of COVID-19 cases in India has reached 12,759, according to the latest figures available. Among the states, Maharashtra is the worst-affected state recording a total of 3,202 cases and 194 deaths, on Thursday.

The Centre marked 170 districts across the country as COVID-19 hotspots or “red zones”, on Wednesday, and another 207 districts as potential hotspots or “white zones”. This means 377 out of 732 districts in the country have been affected by the pandemic.

The number of global coronavirus cases had crossed two million, on Wednesday. The latest figure stands at 2,134,465. The total number of deaths has crossed 140,000 with Europe accounting for more than two-thirds of the total fatalities from the infection.

Latest coronavirus India stats: