A decision to impose "lockdown" under the garb of a "janata curfew" (voluntary shutdown) in the last week of February as coronavirus cases started to build up in most parts of Maharashtra helped Amravati tackle the onslaught better than others, the district's guardian minister Yashomati Thakur said on Monday.

She said the situation in Maharashtra, currently witnessing the most severe surge in the country, would have been different if the "Amravati pattern" was implemented statewide earlier.