Effect of Early Lockdown in India During the Outbreak of COVID-19: A Comparative Study of USA, Italy and India

Recently, the World Health Organization (WHO) has declared COVID-19 as a worldwide public health emergency. The mode of transmission of COVID-19 appears to be from humans to humans. There is no vaccine or specific drug available for its treatment. To reduce the spread of this disease, reduction of the human to human contact is required. Therefore, the concept of social distancing and community lockdown prevails as one of the preventive measures. Some of the countries followed early community lockdown, while some adopted it at a later stage. The community lockdown could be effective in reducing the spread of COVID-19. However, management of the same still remains a matter of concern.

In the present study, we have extracted data from WHO daily situation reports and have compared the disease progression per week from the first identified confirmed case of USA, Italy and India. Our observation indicates that the number of cases in India is significantly lesser as compared to the USA and Italy. This might have happened due to the early lockdown in India.

Keywords: COVID-19, Early Quarantine, India, Italy, Lockdown, Social isolation, USA.