The Union Health Ministry said on Saturday (April 11) that in the absence of a nationwide lockdown and containment measures, the number of coronavirus COVID-19 infections in the country would have by now reached to at least two lakh. The remarks were made by the joint secretary at the ministry Luv Agarwal during his daily press briefing on the evolving situation in the country.

"Lockdown and containment measures are important to fight COVID19. If we have not taken any measures then we might have had 2 lakh cases at this time," said Luv Agarwal. "India's response to COVID19has been proactive. We have followed a graded approach. At least 586 COVID-19dedicated hospitals have been earmarked at state and centre level and over 1lakh isolation beds in the country," Agarwal said. He said that in thelast 24 hours, there was a rise of 1,035 cases and 40 deaths reported fromacross the country. He also stated that there is no shortage of thehydroxychloroquine tablets, which is being used for the treatment ofcoronavirus.

With this, the total number of coronavirus cases in thecountry on Saturday reached to 7,447 with Maharashtra being the worst-hit withover 1,600 cases. The death toll has risen to 239 with 40 deaths reported inthe last 24 hours.

The graph below shows the criticality of lockdown andcontainment for India:

Through this graph presentation, an an analysis was giventhat had there was no lockdown in the country and social distancing wasn'tfollowed, then how many more cases had come up from across the country.

As per the health ministry, there would have been at least8.2 lakh positive cases of coronavirus in the country till April 15. However,till date, only 7,447 cases have been reported.

On behalf of ICMR, Dr. Raman and R Gangakhedkar said that1,71,718 sample tests have been done in the country till date and this has beendone in both government and private labs. "On April 10, 16,564 sampletests were conducted within a day in both government and private labs acrossthe country," he said.