New Delhi, May 11 -- The speed of coronavirus spurt in India, both in terms of duration of doubling of cases as well as ratio of growth over a period of one month, could provide little comfort despite reassuring claims by officials and experts. The country has surpassed the global average and raced ahead of some of the worst-affected nations by a big margin on both these counts.

In one month, India saw a nine-time rise in the number of cases, going up from 6,700 cases on April 9 to 63,000 plus cases on May 9. In the same duration, the worldwide count rose from 1,600,590 to 4,098,288 cases, which amounts to a near 2.5-time rise.

The USA saw a similar 2.5-time growth with cases rising from 4,29,000 to 10,29,494 between April 9 and May 9....