ISSUE DATE: March 1, 2021
UPDATED: February 22, 2021 11:58 IST
Frontline defence: Delhi Police SI Rajesh Chauhan gets a Covid vaccine shot at Chacha Nehru Hospital in Delhi
As India enters Unlock 9, almost a year after first going into lockdown on March 24, 2020, and reopens its cinema halls, malls and swimming pools, it may be a good time to ask where we stand in our fight against Covid-19. The official statistics look encouraging. According to health ministry figures, India recorded less than 9,000 new cases in 24 hours on February 9, a massive drop from the 90,000-odd daily cases it was recording in November. Its total cases as on February 9 stood at 10.8 million and deaths at 155,195, compared to the 27 million cases and 465,000 deaths in the US. And they are a country of 320 million people. On a per capita basis, the number of infections in the US was 12 times that in India.