Updated: September 1, 2020 8:52:21 am
Coronavirus cases in India: As the positivity rate has continued to trend downward, the recent surge in novel coronavirus cases in India is attributed to an increase in the number of tests being performed. The positivity rate gives an indication of the spread of the disease in the community. A decreasing positivity rate would mean that fewer people are being infected by the same number of tests that are being done. In such a scenario, while the number of new detections will increase with a increase in the number of tests, the disease is not seen to spread at a very rapid rate.
For the past five days, India has been reporting more than 75,000 new cases every day, more than any other country has done. The last few weeks have also seen a huge increase in the number of tests, which have been crossing the million mark in just a few days. So the suggestion is that the increase in new detections is due to the increase in the number of tests, and not to a faster transmission of the virus, because that would also have been reflected in an increase in the positivity rate.
While this may be true nationally, where the positivity rate is showing a marginal but steady decline since the beginning of this month, things appear to be slightly different in the states that are the main cause of this increase.
Four of the five states with maximum load of cases in the country, which are also driving the recent surge, are experiencing an increasing trend in their positivity rates. The only exception is Delhi at this time. Three of these four, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, and Karnataka, also have positivity rates well above the national number.
The most prominent increase in the positivity rate, unsurprisingly, has occurred in Andhra Pradesh, which has seen an increase of two percentage points in the last two weeks, from around 9.5 percent in the middle of this month. at 11.5 percent now. In Karnataka and Maharashtra, the rise has been less steep, but has been increasing nonetheless. The increase is even smaller in Uttar Pradesh.
These are also the states that are contributing the most to the increase. Maharashtra has started reporting more than 16,000 cases a day, from a level of around 12,000 about ten days ago. Andhra Pradesh has again reported more than 10,000 cases a day, a level that was reached when it was experiencing a peak growth of around 10 percent a day. The daily number of cases had dropped to a range of 7,000 to 8,000 in recent weeks, before the current increase. Similarly, Karnataka, which had been detecting 5,000 to 7,000 cases until a few days ago, has started reporting 8,000 to 9,000 cases now. Uttar Pradesh crossed the 6,000-figure mark for the first time on Sunday.
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Top ten states with the highest case load
STATE | TOTAL POSITIVE | NEW CASES | TOTAL RECOVERIES | DECEASED | |||||
Maharashtra | 780,689 | 16,408 | 562,401 | 24,740 | |||||
Andra Pradesh | 424,767 | 10,603 | 321,754 | 3,884 | |||||
Tamil nadu | 422,085 | 6,495 | 362133 | 7,231 | |||||
Karnataka | 335,928 | 8,852 | 242,229 | 5,608 | |||||
Uttar Pradesh | 225,632 | 6,175 | 167,543 | 3,423 | |||||
Delhi | 173,390 | 2,024 | 154,171 | 4,426 | |||||
west bengal | 159,785 | 3,019 | 130,952 | 3,176 | |||||
Bihar | 135,013 | 2,078 | 117,305 | 688 | |||||
Telangana | 124,963 | 1,873 | 92,838 | 827 | |||||
Assam | 105,774 | 1,980 | 83,927 | 296 |
The increase in testing does not fully explain the increase in cases in these states, particularly when there has not been a big jump in testing in these states. In some other states like Telangana, the increase in numbers in fact, it appears to be driven by increased testing.
Unsurprisingly, Andhra Pradesh has now become the state with the second highest number of cases in the country, after Maharashtra. The state now has more than 4.24 lakhs of people who have been infected with the virus at some point. Maharashtra has more than 7.8 lakh people.
the death toll in India is now the third largest in the world, as is the total number of cases. In these two metrics, the United States and Brazil are the only countries ahead of India. With 971 deaths reported on Sunday, India’s death count is now 64,469, which is now more than Mexico.
More than 78,500 new cases were detected on Sunday, bringing the total number of people infected with the virus so far to 36.21 lakh, of which 27.74 lakh, or more than 76 percent, have recovered from the virus. disease.
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