COVID-19: Doubling rate of cases in India slower than in US, Italy, Spain: Officials

PTI, Apr 17, 2020, 8:01 AM IST

New Delhi: The rate at which COVID-19 cases has been doubling in India is slower as compared to several other countries such as the USA, Italy and Spain, according to officials.

Similarly, the total number of cases and deaths per million is lower in India than these countries which have been hit hard by the pandemic.

Officials quoting data sourced from the health ministry and Worldometers.info said India in comparison to several other countries tested more people when the cases crossed the 5,000 and 10,000 marks.

Officials said that the cases doubled from 750 to 1500 in four days in India and from 1500 to 3000 in four days again while it took five days for the number of cases to double from 3000-6000 and six days to reach the 12000 figure.

In comparison, in the US, it took two days for cases to double from 750, three days to go up from 1500 to 3000, two days from 3000 to 6000 and another two days to go up from 6000 to 12000 cases.

In Italy, for the same range of cases, it took two, three, four days and three days respectively.

The number of days it took in Spain for cases to double was one day (750-1500), two (1500-3000), two (3000-6000) and from four days (6000-12000).

In UK, cases went up from 750 to 1500 in three days, from 1500-3000 in three days, 3000-6000 in four days and from 6000-12000 in four days.

Officials said that India has nine COVID-19 patients per one million population while it stood at 267 per million globally.

As compared to India, Spain has 3,864 cases per million, Italy 2,732, France 2,265, the US 1,946, Germany 1,608 and Japan 68 cases.

India has 0.3 deaths per million population, as compared to 86 in the US, 402 in Spain, 358 in Italy and 190 in the UK, 263 in France, 45 in Germany and one in Japan.

The deaths per million population worldwide stands at 17.3. As far as testing is concerned, India had conducted 1.14 lakh tests when it crossed 5000 cases and 2.17 lakh tests on the date the country recorded 10,000 cases.

The Italy, US and UK had conducted0.49 lakh,1.04 lakh and 0.78 lakh tests on the date the cases crossed the 5000 mark respectively and 0.73 lakh, 1.39 lakh and 1.13 lakh tests respectively on the date the cases crossed the 10,000 mark.

Canada, however, had conducted 2.41 lakh tests on the date it crossed 5000 cases and 2.95 lakh tests when it hit 10,000.

However, in the US and Germany, the number jumped from 6,000 to 12,000 cases in just two days, the data showed.

While countries like the UK, Spain and France saw the rise of cases from 6,000 to 12,000 in four days each, in Italy it happened in three days. In Canada the number doubled to 12,000 in five days.

The data also shows that India has only nine COVID-19 patients per 10 lakh population, which is far lesser than other countries.

While the US has 1946 patients per 10 lakh population, Spain has 3864 cases, Italy has 2732, France 2265, the UK 1451 and Germany 1608 coronavirus patients per 10 lakh population.

The pandemic which has claimed over 1.30 lakh lives globally, has led to the death of over 400 patients in India which is approximately 0.3 persons per 10 lakh population, the data said.

In the US,86 people have died per 10 lakh population, 402 per 10 lakh population deaths have been recorded in Spain, 358 in Italy, 263 in France, 190 in the UK, 27 in Canada and 45 deaths per 10 lakh population in Germany.

The data also revealed that India has conducted more tests than the US, Italy, France and many other countries after crossing 10,000 cases.

On the date India crossed 5000 COVID-19 cases, it had conducted 1,14,015 tests and when it crossed the 10,000 mark it had conducted 2,17,554 tests.

In the USA, 1,04,073 patients were tested for the virus the day it crossed 5,000 cases and 1,39,878 tests were conducted when it crossed the 10,000 mark.

On the date Italy crossed 10,000 cases it had conducted 73154 tests while the UK had conducted 78340 tests.

The death toll rose to 420 and the number of cases in the country climbed to 12,759 on Thursday, according to the Union Health Ministry.