The Chhattisgarh government said on Sunday that the lockdown imposed in the state has contained the spread of Covid-19.
Citing figures of testing in the worst-affected Bhilai region, an official statement said the infection was down 22 percent compared to the past week when the lockdown was enforced.
If positivity of the past four days is taken into consideration, it was 30, 32, 33 and 26 percent respectively, the statement said. The positivity rate before the lockdown surged over 50 percent. Thirteen of the 28 districts have a positivity rate of less than 20 percent, it said.
Since March 2020, Chhattisgarh has recorded 5,738 deaths due to the pandemic. But the fatality rate of 1.54 percent in April is much higher than the 0.75 per cent recorded during last year’s peak in October.
The state is the third highest in terms of active cases (130,400 cases as of April 17), behind only Maharashtra and Delhi.
So far, most deaths have been concentrated in the major district town as severely ill get referred to hospitals in Raipur, Bhilai and Bilaspur.