New Delhi: The coronavirus pandemic is on the upswing again in India which observed a ‘Janata curfew’ on this day a year ago. It was the ‘Janata curfew’ which paved the way for an over two-month long strict nationwide lockdown to curb the contagion.
Millions of people across India stayed indoors March 22, 2020. It was an unprecedented and overwhelming response to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s appeal for the nationwide curfew. People on ‘Janata curfew day came out briefly at 5.00pm to show their gratitude to healthcare and other essential service providers.
India reported its first case of coronavirus infection January 30 last year from Kerala. The first death was reported March 10 from Karnataka. A lockdown was clamped in India from March 25 till May 31, affecting the economy badly.
The government initiated the ‘unlock’ procedure from June to make up for the economic cost of the lockdown. Immediately the COVID-19 cases started to gallop. India soon became the second worst-hit nation after the US by September.
India eased the lockdown through a graded and pre-emptive approach/ The Health Ministry issued standard operating procedures for opening up religious places, shopping malls, restaurants, hotels and offices to prevent the spread of the infection.
The number of daily coronavirus cases peaked in September with 97,894 infections being reported on the 17th day of the month. However, after that India began witnessing a gradual decline in cases.
India crossed the grim milestone of one crore COVID-19 cases December 19. The daily rise in cases fell below 30,000 since December 14 (27,071) and the lowest daily increase of 8,635 infections was reported February 2 this year.
The daily rise in cases, however, started remaining above 30,000 from March 18. India reported 46,951 new coronavirus infections Monday, the highest so far this year. India has seen 2,60,742 cases in the last seven days.
The daily fresh cases remained below 20,000 from January 8 till March 10 after which the cases began to spike.
Around 13 states and Union Territories (UTs) were out of the grip of COVID-19 before the ‘Janata curfew’ was announced. Now on the first anniversary of ‘Janata curfew’ each and every state and UTs have reported COVID-19 cases.
In this one year a lot of changes have taken place. India has strengthened its healthcare infrastructure. It has ramped up the production of COVID-19 protective gear like personal protection equipment (PPE) and N-95 masks. Testing facilities have been scaled to a great extent.
At the same time, India have started producing two vaccines – Bharat Biotech’s indigenously developed Covaxin and Oxford-AstraZeneca’s Covishield manufactured by Serum Institute. These were approved by the national drug regulator January 3, and till date, more than 4.50 crore (4,50,65,998) vaccine doses have been administered in India.
India stands at number one position in terms of recovered coronavirus cases followed by Brazil. In terms of fatalities, India is in the fourth position.