Lockdown will no longer help in Covid-19 fight: Virologist Shahid Jameel

Lockdown bought India time in its fight against coronavirus, but continuing it is unlikely to yield any further dividend, Jameel said.

The nationwide lockdown will no longer help India in its fight against Covid-19, and in its place community-driven containment, isolation and quarantine strategies have to be brought into play, leading virologist Shahid Jameel said.

The recipient of Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology also stressed that testing should be carried out vigorously to identify coronavirus hotspots and isolate those areas, news agency PTI reported.

"Our current testing rate at 1,744 tests per million population is one of the lowest in the world. We should deploy both antibody tests and confirmatory PCR tests. This will tell us about pockets