Coronavirus is a '12-18 months' problem and the world is not going to be free of this till 2021, says Professor Ashish Jha.
The first death in the US was reported on February 29. The country reached 50,000 deaths 54 days later on April 23, and 34 days later, on May 27, crossed 100,000 deaths. It has taken 63 days to add another 50,000 to reach the 150,000 mark, CNN reported.
Ashish Jha, the head of Harvard's Global Health Institute, said the 200,000 death toll is "not just a guess". Currently 800-1000 people are dying daily in America from the virus and all data suggest that the situation is going to get worse.
In an interaction with former Congress chief Rahul Gandhi on the impact of lockdown on India's economy, Rajiv Bajaj, MD, Bajaj Auto, said India tried to implement a hard lockdown which was still porous and ended up with the worst of both worlds.
Harvard Global Health Institute Director Dr Ashish Jha noted that the number of cases in India may be higher than what the data suggests because while testing has been improving, it has not been rolled out in a way that will capture all low-symptomatic patients.
'We are not yet out of the woods.' 'If India sees the South African or Brazilian type of mutations, our numbers will rapidly rise.'
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