It is too far early to assess the success of Lockdown 2.0, but there is one certainty, which is that since April 3 Goa has not reported any COVID-19 case, which indicates that the lockdown has worked for the small State with a population just around 1.5 million. From seven cases Goa has reached the figure of zero active cases, with all patients cured. However, elsewhere in the country, the results have not been encouraging and there is every possibility of the lockdown being extended. India may soon be in Lockdown 3.0 and despite the State reporting no case in the last 20 days, it may find itself included in the new lockdown. However, considering that Goa has no cases, it has to get more relaxations than presently allowed.
One would debate whether the lockdown has succeeded in India or not. If we observe the figures closely, the situation could have been worse. According to a study conducted by ICMR, in the absence of a lockdown and containment measures, there could have been 8,20,000 cases by April 15. The projection, with containment measures but no lockdown stood at 1.2 lakh cases. The statistics say pre-lockdown on March 17, India had 137 cases while on March 24 (still before the lockdown), 519 cases had been reported. There was a 279 per cent growth in the number of cases in the week before the lockdown.
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The number of cases almost quadrupled in seven days. In the week preceding the lockdown, the Weekly Growth Multiple (WGM) stood at 3.79. As such on March 25, there were 606 cases, April 1, there were 1,966 cases, April 8 it rose to 5,749 cases, April 15 higher to 12,021 cases and April 21 to 20,004 cases. Hence the WGM on April 1 was 3.24, April 8 it dropped to 2.92, April 15 to 2.09 and April 21 stood at 1.66. Thus, the WGM dropped from 3.79 in the week before the lockdown to 1.66 the week ending April 21. The WGM for this week is less than half of the last week before the lockdown – this is a massive fall in the rate of growth of cases.
Also, the doubling of cases reduced. Between March 20 and 23, the cases rose from 223 to 433 – i.e 1.94 times in three days. After two weeks of the lockdown, the cases took approximately six days to double from April 8 to 14 (1.91 times). After two weeks of the lockdown, the Public Health Foundation of India stated that there is a decrease in the rate of growth of infection and social distancing in India has been more effective than in many other countries. This period of doubling further increased to seven days from April 14 to April 21 (1.82 times increase). This was consistent with the findings of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. The Average Growth Factor of COVID-19 has slowed to 1.2 per cent from April 1. It was 2.1 per cent in the two weeks from March 15 to March 31 – a 40 per cent decline in the growth factor. The percentage increase in daily cases has gone down from 12 per cent on April 20 to 9 per cent on April 21 to 6 per cent on April 22.
While there is little doubt that the country needs to test more, ICMR says, India’s tests/cases ratio stands at 22.92 and is the third-best amongst countries with 10,000-plus cases. India’s tests/death ratio stands at 717.24 and is the seventh-best amongst countries with 10,000-plus cases. We need to understand that with no lockdown, the number of cases in India could have crossed a million by now with a proportionate increase in the number of deaths too. Thus, a stringent lockdown appears to be the only effective measure.
