The number of COVID-19 cases in India has been doubling every three weeks but the epidemic is not growing exponentially in the country and South Asia region, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Friday
“In South Asia, not just in India, but in Bangladesh and… Pakistan and other countries of South Asia with large dense populations, the disease has not exploded, but there is always the risk of that happening,” Dr. Mike Ryan, WHO’s top emergency expert, told a news conference.
He stressed that as the disease generates and creates a foothold in communities, it can accelerate at any time as has been seen in a number of settings.
Soumya Swaminathan, WHO’s chief scientist, noting India has a population of 1.3 billion, said that the 200,000 reported cases, “look big but for a country of this size it’s still modest”.
India reported a record 9,887 new coronavirus cases in one day on Saturday and overtook Italy as the world’s sixth-biggest outbreak with more than 236,000 cases.
However, India‘s toll of deaths from COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus, is 6,642, small compared with those other countries.
Ryan noted that measures taken in India such as the nationwide lockdown have had an impact in slowing transmission but the risk of an increase in cases looms as the country opens up.
“The measures taken in India certainly had an impact in dampening transmission and as India, as in other large countries, open up and as people begin to move again, there’s always a risk of the disease bouncing back up,” he said.
The nation-wide lockdown in containment zones will continue till June 30 in India but extensive relaxations in a phased manner from June 8 are listed in the federal interior ministry’s fresh guidelines on tackling the pandemic issued last week.
Swaminathan added that as the lockdown and restrictions are lifted, it must be ensured that all precautions are taken by people.
“We’ve been making this point repeatedly that really if you want behaviour change at a large level, people need to understand the rationale for asking them to do certain things (such as) wearing masks,” she said.
In many urban areas in India, it’s impossible to maintain physical distancing, she said adding that it then becomes very important for people to wear appropriate face coverings when they are out, in office settings, in public transport and educational institutions.
“As some states are thinking about opening, every institution, organisation, industry and sector needs to think about what are the measures that need to be put in place before you can allow a functioning and it may never be back to normal.”
She said that in many professions working from home can be encouraged but in several jobs, people have to go to work and in such cases measures must be put in place that allow people to protect themselves and others.
“I think communication and behaviour change is a very large part of this whole exercise,” she added.
