‘No one has ever said that the coronavirus cases will be zero by a particular date’, Niti Aayog member VK Paul said, and apologised for any misconception on the matter. Last month, Paul made a presentation at a Health Ministry briefing in which he explained how the lockdown helped curtail the spread of the virus. In one of the slides, the curve showed active cases plummeting to zero by May 16.
This is the first time Dr. Paul has acknowledged the issue at a public forum. His presentation suggested that the first lockdown had prevented India from seeing a 1,00,000 cases in April. It had also slowed the rate of transmission and increased the doubling time, the period it took for cases to double, to about 10 days. However, included in this was a PowerPoint slide that projected the benefits from “extending the lockdown” beyond April 15. This had a curve showing the number of active cases plummeting to zero by May 16.
While it’s true Dr. Paul didn’t actually say the cases would go down to zero, a video of the day’s presentation available on YouTube shows him using that slide to demonstrate the lockdown’s impact in slowing down the increase in cases. From May 3, India would hit its peak in adding daily cases at a little above 1,500 and this would drop to 1,000 by May 12, and down to zero by May 16, this curve showed.
