NEW DELHI: In stark contrast with India’s experience during Unlock 1.0 in June, an analysis of data of five of the worst-hit European countries by the Covid-19 pandemic shows that the number of daily fresh cases and deaths has progressively declined after they began a phased unlock around mid-May.
In Italy, one of the worst-affected in Europe, lockdown was announced on March 23 and it announced a graded lifting of restrictions from May 4. Since then daily Covid-19 cases have been on the decline, from 1,075 cases on May 5 to 519 cases on June 5 and 192 cases on July 5.
A similar trend is seen as far as the deaths are concerned, with 236 dead on May 5 to 85 deaths on June 5 and 21 on July 4.
India, on the other hand, had 97,008 active cases on June 1, when Unlock-1.0 began. By June-end, that figure climbed to 2,20,478. On July 6, India reported a huge spike of 24,248 new corona cases with 425 fatalities.
Another country in Europe, Germany, started a phased lifting of the lockdown from April-end. The number of cases in that country on April 30 was 1,470, it came down to 275 on May 30 and 140 on July 5.
Similarly, Spain lifted the national state of emergency on June 22 and a phased opening in mid-May. Since May 17, the cases have been declining with slight jumps occasionally.
In France, the first phase of unlocking started on May 11.
The graph of daily cases is steady, with an occasional rise. On May 11, about 456 cases were reported, but on May 28 it rose to 3,325 falling down to 81 on June 24 but 1,588 on June 26. France saw 18 deaths on July 3.
The UK started relaxing norms from June 1. The daily cases have remained below 2,000 since then with numbers recording only slight changes.
The daily cases were 516 on July 5 while the number was 1,287 on June 13. Daily deaths have remained below 400 since June 1 with fluctuations on some days.