India’s COVID-19 doubling rate slower, mortality rate lower than US, Italy, Spain, UK

PTI, Apr 30, 2020, 4:27 PM IST

New Delhi: The rate at which COVID-19 cases has been doubling in India is slower than several other countries such as the USA, Italy, Spain and the UK which have been hit hard by the pandemic, according to official sources.

In terms of mortality rate too, India fared better than these developed nations.

Data from the health ministry and Worldometer, a website that records confirmed cases of infection and deaths globally, said in India coronavirus cases doubled from 500 to 1,000 in five days and then took four days to reach 2,000.

It took just three days for coronavirus cases in the country to double and reach the 4,000 mark but six days for the tally to reach 8,000. Then the doubling rate was eight days when the tally reached 16,000 and 10 days as it hit the 32,000 mark.

In comparison, in the US, it took three days for the cases to double from 500-1,000, two days to go up from 1,000 to 2,000, three days from 2,000 to 4000, two days from 4,000 to 8,000, two days again from 8,000 to 16,000 and another two days to go up from 16,000 to 32,000 cases.

In Italy, for the same range of cases, it took two, two, four, three, four days and five days respectively while in Spain for the same range of cases of COVID-19, it took two, two, two, three, three and four days.

As for the United Kingdom, the number of days it took for cases to double from 500 was two days, four days from 1,000 to 2000, three days from 2,000 to 4,000, again three days from there to reach 8,000 cases, four days to reach 16,000 and five days to hit the 32,000.

In Germany, cases went up from 500 to 1000 in three days, from 1000 to 2000 in four days, 2000 to 4000 in two days, 4000 to 8000 in three days, from 8000-16,000 in three days and 16,000 to 32,000 in four days.

However, Canada is ahead of India in slowing the COVID-19 doubling rate. The rate was three days when the number of cases kept doubling from 500 till it hit the 4,000 mark. From then on it started to slow, with it taking five days for the cases to double and reach the tally of 8,000, another six days to reach 16,000 and 12 days to hit the 32,000 mark.

Not just the doubling rate of coronavirus cases, official sources say that the mortality rate was lower in India than many other countries.

India had 4,067 COVID-19 cases when it crossed the benchmark of 100 deaths. At this point, France had 5,423 cases, Italy 3,089 cases, Spain 4,231, the UK had reported 2,630 and Brazil 3,904 cases.

India had 15,712 cases when it crossed the benchmark of 500 deaths. France had 14,459 cases, Italy 10,149, Spain 13,716, the UK 11,658 and Brazil 12,056 cases for the same number of fatalities.

Also, India had 31,332 cases when its death toll crossed the 1,000 mark. At that same point, France had 22,304 cases, Italy 15,113, Spain 21,571, UK 17,089 and Brazil 19,789 cases.

The death toll due to COVID-19 rose to 1,074 and the number of cases climbed to 33,050 in India on Thursday, according to the Union Health Ministry.