he Union health ministry on Saturday said the total number of Covid-19 cases in India would have been around two lakh by now had the government not imposed a nationwide lockdown and adopted containment measures.

Addressing the daily press conference in New Delhi, Joint Secretary (Health) Lav Agarwal said, “Lockdown and containment measures are important to fight Covid-19. If we had not taken any measures then we might have had two lakh cases at this time.”

Speaking about the available health infrastructure, Lav Agarwal said there are one lakh isolation beds and 11,500 ICU beds reserved for Covid-19 patients across country.

He claimed the government’s response to Covid-19 pandemic has “been proactive”. “We have followed a graded approach. There are 586 Covid-19 dedicated hospitals and more than one lakh isolation beds in the country,” Lav Agrawal said.

Meanwhile, the total number of Covid-19 cases in India has touched 7,447. Of these, 642 cases have recovered and 239 have died.