India showing declining trend of COVID-19 cases: Government
The country is showing a declining trend of COVID-19 cases since the last four months and compared to similarly placed nations, the cases and deaths per million population in India is among the lowest, the government told Rajya Sabha on Tuesday. Minister of State for Health Ashwini Kumar Choubey was responding to a question about the exponential multiplication of coronavirus cases in the country.
Questioned on government's initial approach toward combating the virus
"The country is showing a declining trend of COVID 19 cases since the last four months. The recovery rate and case fatality rate for the country are 96.94 percent and 1.44 percent respectively," his written reply said. He was also asked whether the approach in the initial stage by the government focusing on testing, contact tracing, isolation, and quarantine management was wrong.
India followed a globally-recommended strategy to suppress transmission: Choubey
Answering the question on the government's initial response, he said, "The government's strategy of focusing on testing, contact tracing, isolation and quarantine-containment is the fundamental approach for managing infectious disease outbreaks of epidemic or pandemic in nature." He added that the strategy has been recommended globally and by the World Health Organization for suppressing transmission or breaking the cycle of transmission of COVID-19.
Non-pharmaceutical interventions, such a physical distancing, help control the spread
"Such a strategy combined with non-pharmaceutical interventions such as physical distancing, hand hygiene, respiratory etiquettes and use of mask or face covers, closure of schools and workplaces, complements the containment strategy in preventing the disease from spreading," the minister said. "The government periodically issued guidelines, protocols, and standard operating procedures based on existing scientific evidence," Choubey added.
Aarogya Setu interface was used to track cases effectively: Choubey
To another question on whether geo-tagging was done for areas with high COVID-19 cases, Choubey said all states and union territories followed mapping of cases and clusters digitally to demarcate containment and buffer zones. Additionally, the Aarogya Setu ITIHAS interface, which uses location data, and the Aarogya Setu analytics to predict emerging hotspots were used effectively to support surveillance and case finding.
'Comparison of deaths with other South Asian nations not apt'
Meanwhile, when asked if COVID-19 related deaths per million population in India is much higher than other South Asian countries such as Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Pakistan, he said, "Yes. Comparison of deaths per million may not be apt as there are multiple factors that may contribute to this observation." Some such factors are varied geography, case definitions, surveillance, testing, and reporting protocols.
Number of deaths per million population reported by other countries
However, Choubey said an analysis of countries that have reported a higher number of cases indicates that the deaths per million population in India is among the lowest. India has recorded 112 deaths per million population, while the US has reported 1,347, the UK 1,533, Spain 1,247, Brazil 1,044 and Russia 495.
