Explained: How increase in number of positive cases for coronavirus play vital role in India

New Delhi, Apr 22: With more than 500 novel coronavirus patients registered in Maharashtra on Tuesday, the total number of positive cases in India is in touching distance of 20,000 cases. The same day, the country witnessed at least 52 deaths being reported from across the states. This would be the highest numbers recorded in a single day since the beginning of the outbreak.

It can be seen that Maharashtra has contributed more than one-third of the new coronavirus cases in the country. On April 19, the state had added 552 cases and 466 new cases had emerged the following date.

On April 21, as many as 1,510 new cases were reported from across the country, which would be the second-highest number of cases in a single day since the outbreak began to spread in India. The biggest increase was recorded on Sunday, when 1,577 new cases had emerged.

Other major contributors to Tuesday's increase in the number of COVID-19 cases were Gujarat, which the state reported 239 fresh cases, Rajasthan with 159 and Uttar Pradesh with 153 new cases.

During this, Gujarat overtook Delhi as the state with the second-highest number of cases in India. Gujarat now has 2,178 cases while Delhi has 2156.

In south India, Kerala reported a significant number of cases on Tuesday. Its 19 cases were the highest in the state that was recorded in the last 20 days. The state has 426 people who have tested positive for coronavirus.

Though the number of cases in India is seen increasing, the spread of the disease in the country has been reduced considerably as a result of the lockdown.

How did India witness coronavirus outbreak before imposing nationwide lockdown?

Before imposing the lockdown in India, the country witnessed a massive growth in the number of cases. It had taken around two weeks to move from three cases at the start of March to 100 cases, another two weeks to reach 1000 cases, and a little more than two weeks to touch the 10,000 figure.

If the country had failed to impose lockdown, India would have reached one lakh cases by the end of the month.