The Union Health Ministry on Monday said the rate at which the number of COVID-19 cases in the country was doubling in the last one week improved to 7.5 days, as against 3.4 days before the nationwide lockdown was imposed.

Joint Secretary in the Ministry of Health Lav Agarwal provided the latest data at the daily media briefing citing the rate of doubling of infection across the country. He, however, provided the data of only 18 states and UTs.

The rated of doubling of infection as provided by him were between 8.5 and 72.2 days. It could not be immediately known which states had registered the doubling time of 7.5 or less.