COVID-19 doubling time in India improved to 13.6 days in last 3 days: Vardhan

The doubling time of coronavirus infection in India has improved to 13.6 days in the last three days from 11.5 in the past 14 days, Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan said on Sunday as the country registered a record single-day jump of around 5,000 cases.

The fatality rate is down to 3.1 per cent and the recovery rate has improved to 37.5 per cent, he said.

Substantiating his point that the spread of the infection in the country has been slow, Vardhan said coronavirus cases in India reached the 80,000 mark in 106 days while developed nations such as the UK, Italy, Spain, Germany and the US took 44-66 days to reach that mark.

Eight states and Union Territories -- Arunachal Pradesh, Chandigarh, Ladakh, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Puducherry, the Andaman and Nicobar Islands and Dadra and Nagar Haveli --have not reported any case of COVID-19 in the last 24 hrs.

Sikkim, Nagaland, Daman and Diu, and Lakshadweep have not reported any case till now, Vardhan said in a statement.

With India entering the fourth phase of the nationwide lockdown from Monday, Vardhan said, "Our policy, perseverance coupled with aggressive and early measures through a strong leadership have shown encouraging results. While the doubling time in the past 14 days was 11.5, it has improved to 13.6 in the last three days."
In a tweet, Vardhan said, "Because of India's well-turned strategy in the fight against COVID-19, the nation touched the 80,000-cases mark in 106 days as against 44-66 days taken by countries such as the UK, Italy, Spain, Germany and the US. I truly believe that under PM Narendra Modi's leadership, we will win this war against the pandemic."
Highlighting that the daily testing capacity has increased to 1,00,000 tests through 373 government and 152 private laboratories, he said, "Cumulatively, 22,79,324 COVID-19 tests have been done so far of which 90,094 samples were tested on Saturday."