New Delhi, April 9: Steve Hanke, an applied economist at Johns Hopkins University, on Wednesday said that India is testing very fewer cases per million for the novel coronavirus. The JHU Professor warned that if the situation remains the same, the country can easily turn "into the next Italy". He said that the testing in India is even lower than Pakistan. Coronavirus Testing Almost Doubled in April, Nearly 90,000 Samples Tested So Far: Report.

According to data presented by him, India is testing 102 people per million, Pakistan 191 per million, the United States of America 6,336 per million. Hong Kong has performed the best by testing 12,900 people per million. Coronavirus Cases Rise to 5865 in India, Death Toll Climbs to 169 With 20 More Deaths in Past 24 Hours.

"India is testing at very low levels, at just 102 tests per 1M pop. Pakistan is almost dysfunctional, & they are testing more at 191 tests per 1M pop. Modi's #Lockdown doesn't identify who's ill & who's healthy. Without testing, India can easily spiral into the next Italy," Hanke tweeted.

Steve Hanke's Tweet:

However, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) on Monday said that it is gearing to add 200 additional labs for round-the-clock COVID-19 testing. ICMR also said that it is considering to scale up testing capacity to 100,000 tests per day.

Currently, the country is testing 18,000 samples for coronavirus per day across 192 government and private laboratories. “With a view to preparing for the worst-case scenario, ICMR has taken a number of steps towards enhancing the number of labs, machines and test kits required to test suspected cases across the country,” the council said in a statement.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Apr 09, 2020 06:28 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).