At the outbreak of COVID19, India took "proactive steps" which have been extremely useful in controlling the situation, the government said.
An important aspect is the critical step of lockdown and containment measures, officials said.
In his address to the nation, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi introduced ‘Janata curfew’ on March 22 and nationwide lockdown on March 25.
As a result, with nationwide lockdown and containment measures there are 5,194 confirmed cases.
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The alternate scenario as per projection would have been 1.2 lakh cases by April 15 with containment measures but no lockdown, said the Indian government.
"If we compare the case trajectory of India with other countries, since the 100th case (21 days till April 7), India’s doubling rate is 4.4 days, cases per million is only 3.3. This is in sharp contrast to US where doubling rate is 2.4 but cases per million is 1125.4. In Italy, the doubling rate is 2.8 and the cases per million population is 2193.4," said an official.
India implemented visa restrictions very early starting from January 17 by issuing the advisory of not to travel to China followed by suspension of visa facility for China from February 5.
Travel advisory was issued on February 5 requesting people to refrain from non-essential travel to the five affected countries.
By March 2, visa was suspended for South Korea, Iran, Italy and Japan.
Restrictions on travel by sea were imposed from March 10 when entry of cruise ships was prohibited and visa suspended for France, Germany and Spain.
By March 11, all existing visas were suspended for France, Spain and Germany and incoming flights prohibited from March 19.
With regard to hospital preparedness guidelines were issued on surveillance and contact tracing, sample collection, packaging and transportation, infection prevention control and clinical management protocol, according to Indian government sources.
Some 508 dedicated COVID-19 hospitals are ready with 82,795 isolation beds, 8,182 ICU beds and 4,935 ventilators.
Besides these, 5,110 additional health facilities are ready with 113,315 isolation beds, 27,641 ICU beds and 12,867 ventilators. Union Government has also provided funds to health centres under National Health Mission (NHM).
The Indian government has also taken steps to ensure availability of medical equipment in the form of PPEs, N95 masks and ventilators.
Export of PPEs was banned from January 31 and now there are 20 domestic manufacturers with orders placed for 1.7 crore more PPEs.
Some 2.75 lakh PPEs were available initially and states were given 2.94 lakh PPEs. Export of N95 masks were banned on January 31 and orders placed for 2.13 crores. Nine lakh masks were available initially and states were supplied with 20.4 lakh N95 masks.
Domestic manufacturers for ventilators were developed and order placed for 49,000 more. Initially 8,400 were available but now 16,500 are available.
In January, there was only one testing lab, the number increased to 223 (157 public and 66 private) and 115,000 samples were tested. Rapid Antibody Test was initiated on Influenza Like Illness (ILI) patients in Containment Zone and innovative test collection models introduced.
An institutional response framework has been put in place with the Prime Minister monitoring the situation everyday and continuously engaging with chief ministers and state health ministers. Group of Minister (GoM) have been set up to monitor and Committee of Secretaries (CoS) coordinating the response.
Eleven Empowered Groups formed by the government for Integrated Response. National Task Force of eminent medical and public health experts are guiding strategy and senior officials deputed to states to act as a continuous link.
Video conferencing conducted by Cabinet Secretary with all District Collectors, Municipal Commissioners, Surveillance officers and SPs and States.
Best practices shared by districts and continuous focus on surveillance, contact tracing and patient management initiated.
Unfortunately due to the Tabligh Jamaat incident at Nizamuddin Markaz, the Indian government said the total cases have risen to 4,067 with the doubling rate of 3.6 days.
Without the Tabligh Jamaat incident, it said, the cases would have been 2,622 with doubling rate of 5.4 days.