As the country begins to ease restrictions with various phases of unlocking, the focus should be on reducing the fatality rate, according to Anand Mahindra, Chairman, Mahindra Group.

Mahindra took to Twitter on Thursday to express his views on the rising concerns with a surge in the number of cases.

India reported a single-day spike of over 83,000 cases in a day. The total number of cases in India is over 39 lakh.

“To repeat what I’ve been saying: With transparent & increased testing-which is essential-the case rate is bound to rise. Our focus has to be on tracking, treatment & reduction of the Case Fatality Rate. If caught early, there’s no reason why we can’t bring down fatalities,” Mahindra tweeted.

“Lockdowns were never going to eliminate the virus: they were to slow down the infection rate so that each location had the time to build facilities for treatment-hospital beds, particularly ICU beds. Any locations that failed to install that infrastructure wasted the lockdown,” he wrote.

“Our concern must be to ensure that in non-metro areas — where the spread is rising — there is adequate medical infrastructure & medicines for treatment of the underprivileged. More important, are hospitals/doctors sharing best practices for treatments/therapies as they evolve?” he added.

According to ICMR data, authorities have tested 4,66,79,145 samples for Covid-19 up to Thursday.

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