The death toll due to the novel coronavirus has risen to 273 with 909 new cases having been reported in the last 24 hours taking the total number of confirmed cases in the country to 8,356, according to the Union Health Ministry.

Reportedly, 715 patients have either been cured of the virus or discharged.

With 1,761 COVID-19 cases, Maharashtra remains the worst-affected state with Delhi (1069), Tamil Nadu (969) and Rajasthan (700) grappling to contain the outbreak.

States like Maharashtra, West Bengal, Odisha, Punjab, Delhi and Tamil Nadu have already announced an extension of the lockdown till April 30.

The Union Health Ministry has pointed out that the number of COVID-19 cases in India would have increased to 8.2 lakh by April 15 if a nationwide lockdown would not have been implemented.

Briefing the media on the coronavirus situation in the country, Joint Secretary to Union Health Ministry, Lav Agarwal, said rigorous proactive measures to identify COVID-19 hotspots and effective implementation of containment and mitigation measures have played a key role.

‘According to a statistical analysis by us, India would have registered a 41 per cent cumulative rise in the number of cases, taking the total to 2.08 lakh on April 11 and 8.2 lakh by April 15 had there been no lockdown or other containment measures,’ Agarwal said.

With containment measures but no lockdown, the number of cases could have risen to 1.2 lakh till April 15 and to 45,370 on April 11 at 28.9 per cent growth rate, he informed.

The Joint Secretary also highlighted the significance of following measures like social distancing and implementing lockdown when he said inevitable stringent measures from March 25 along with containment measures have been responsible in a decreased number of cases in India.

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