COVID-19 numbers explained: Did lockdown made an impact to slowdown the spread of coronavirus?

New Delhi, May 19: The total number of the deadly coronavirus cases in India has breached the 1,00,000-mark, with more than 4,500 new cases being discovered on Monday. It can be seen that there are only 10 countries now with more cases than India.

However, it should be noted that the 1,00,000-mark was delayed by almost three weeks due to the lockdown, that was first imposed on March 24.

In April, the Computer modelling projections reportedly claimed that at the rate the disease was spreading in the country during then, with no lockdown put in place, the country would have reached the 1,00,000-mark by the end of April.

On May 18, more than 4,600 new cases were reported in India, slightly less than a day earlier when more than 5,000 cases were discovered for the first time.

Also, India took 14 days -from March 2 to March 15- to let the infections travel from zero to hundred cases if the first three cases discovered in Kerala on January 29 are not counted. On March 29, the number of cases had reached 1,000. From then to 10,000, it took another 15 days, and at that rate.

However, it was during this time the lockdown began to show its impact, and the spread of COVID-19 slowed down. At the end of April, there were less than 35,000 cases in the country.

As lockdown restrictions began getting progressively eased, to varying degrees in different states, the number of COVID-19 cases being reported daily, are expected to shoot up.

Between May 4 and now, where the lockdown rules were relaxed, more than 50,000 cases have been discovered. While this may look as a major surge, the growth rate had considerably been slowing down till a couple of days back.

The numbers from the top five most-affected states such as Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Delhi and Rajasthan, contributed to more than 75 per cent to the total addition on Monday.

Meanwhile, Bihar on Monday added 139 cases. In the last three days, Bihar has reported almost 300 cases, which, going by its earlier record, is a major surge. Now, the state has a doubling time of 7.5 days, which is way faster than the national doubling time of 13.68 days.

Odisha is also witnessing a surge due to infections detected in a large number of migrant workers returning to their homes. Tamil Nadu has passed Gujarat to become the state with the second-highest caseload in the country.