With just hundreds of cases, Delhi’s response to coronavirus has already surpassed the UK’s

Delhi’s streets have been deserted for three days in a row – on Sunday, because of a voluntary “people’s curfew” asked for by the prime minister Narendra Modi, and for the past two days under a police-enforced lockdown in towns and cities across the country.

That India continues to be one step ahead of the UK in its coronavirus containment measures – despite its official caseload passing just over 500, compared to Britain’s 6,600 – is testament to two things.

First, the worry here about the chronically underfunded public health system’s ability to cope with severe bouts of Covid-19. Major hospitals are shutting down out-patient departments entirely to prepare isolation units, and all elective surgeries have been cancelled.

But it also shows how meaningless the official case count in India has become. With testing only just being rolled out, nobody is sitting around waiting for the results to confirm what we must already assume to be true: that community transmission is fully underway.

The vast majority of people are acting as though the virus is already widespread. Neighbourhoods normally bursting with sound have fallen eerily silent, and small corner shops are restructuring to help customers meet social distancing guidelines.

But already, there are reports on social media of north-eastern Indian migrants – who more closely resemble ethnic Chinese people – being spat on and called “corona” in the street.

There is outrage too at the news that some hospital workers have been evicted by landlords because of fears they might carry the disease.

Still, in the main, Delhi should be proud of how it is stepped up to the unprecedented challenge of containing this pandemic – there are good news stories to find too.

In my neighbourhood, word quickly spread on Tuesday that garbage collectors had become trapped by the lockdown, unable to return to their homes and forced to sleep near the dump with no clothes, food or water.

Within an hour, residents had drawn up a schedule volunteering to provide breakfast, lunch and dinner to the collectors. Rising out of the fear and uncertainty of this crisis, this was a simple display of a community coming together to look after its most vulnerable members. Hopefully, the same action is being replicated across the country.