Updated: October 18, 2020 1:50:17 pm
At a testing center in New Delhi
A government-appointed scientific committee said on Sunday that the Covid-19 pandemic has peaked in India and that by February 2021, when the epidemic is expected to end, the country is likely to have 10.6 million active cases. The committee also told The Indian Express that protection measures against the virus must continue.
The committee said that if India had not imposed a lockdown in March, the virus could have claimed more than 25 lakhs of lives in the country. The current death toll is 1.14 lakh. “New cases of coronavirus, deaths decreased in the last three weeks, but we cannot rule out the possible second wave of coronavirus infections in India in the winter season,” said the head of the expert panel and member of Niti Aayog, Paul , news agency. PTI reported.
The committee was appointed by K Vijay Raghavan, Senior Scientific Advisor to the Government of India and is chaired by Prof. M Vidyasagar from IIT Hyderabad. The Committee was constituted to coordinate, between scientific agencies, scientists and regulatory bodies, and make rapid decisions in R&D for the implementation related to the SARS-Cov-2 virus and the COVID-19 disease.
India reported a daily increase of 61,871 coronavirus infections in 24 hours, bringing its tally close to the 75 lakh mark, data from the Health Ministry showed this morning. The number of cases in the country now stands at 74,94,551. The total number of recoveries has increased to 65,97,209. While the number of active cases remained below eight lakh for the second day in a row, India remains the second worst affected country. The COVID-19 recovery rate in the country has improved to 88.03 percent, the ministry said.
“The downward trend in active cases is complemented by the uninterrupted increase in recovered cases,” he said. The ministry said that 79 percent of the new recovered cases are observed to be concentrated in Maharashtra, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, West Bengal, Chhattisgarh and Odisha. Additionally, 79 percent of the 61,871 new cases are from Maharashtra, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Odisha, the ministry said. Maharashtra reported over 10,000 new cases followed by Kerala with over 9,000 cases
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