September 12, 2020 11:51:57 am
A healthcare worker collects swab samples for Covid-19 testing at the CTM junction in Ahmedabad on September 11, 2020 (Express photo: Nirmal Harindran).
Coronavirus cases in India: Kerala, the first state in the country to be affected by the novel coronavirus epidemic, now has more than a lakh of people infected with the disease. About 3,000 new cases were detected in Kerala on Friday, bringing the total confirmed infections past the one lakh mark, the 13th state in the country to cross that number.
At one point, Kerala was seen to have controlled the epidemic. After registering the first 500 cases in late April, the state had been reporting news cases in no more than single digits, on some days not at all. By then, Maharashtra had begun to discover more than 1,000 cases a day. States such as Delhi, Tamil Nadu and Gujarat found several hundred cases every day. The state was hailed as an effective containment model.
Kerala Covid-19 Chart
But the situation has completely changed after that. Starting with an increase in cases once lockdown restrictions were first eased, Kerala has been adding numbers steadily. Since July, the number of cases has been growing at one of the fastest rates in the country, although its relative base meant that the actual numbers were much lower than in states such as Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh or Karnataka.
In fact, among the 15 states with the highest number of cases, Kerala still has the fastest daily growth rate. It is currently growing at 3.19 percent per day, compared to the national growth rate of 2.11 percent, and is now on the rise.
However, the death toll in Kerala is relatively low. So far, the state has reported only 410 deaths, although there have been at least 33 more deaths of people positive for the coronavirus that has been evaluated as caused by other health complications. That gives Kerala a fatality rate (total number of confirmed positive patient deaths) of 0.43 percent, which is one of the lowest in the country.
India’s daily Covid-19 count since mid-August
Meanwhile, the number of confirmed infections in Maharashtra crossed the million mark (10-lakh) on Friday, with the addition of nearly 25,000 new cases. The state has almost twice as many confirmed infections compared to Andhra Pradesh, which has the second highest number of cases in the country. Maharashtra has also recorded the highest number of deaths, more than 29,000, accounting for about 40 percent of all coronavirus-related deaths in the country.
Uttar Pradesh posted its biggest single-day increase on Friday, with more than 7,000 new infections detected. Confirmed infections are now just slightly under 3 lakh, a figure that would certainly cross on Saturday.
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The top ten states with the maximum case load:
| STATE | TOTAL POSITIVE | NEW CASES | TOTAL RECOVERIES | DECEASED |
| Maharashtra | 1,015,681 | 24,886 | 715,023 | 29,092 |
| Andhra Pradesh | 547,686 | 9,999 | 446,716 | 4,779 |
| Tamil nadu | 491,571 | 5,519 | 435,422 | 8,231 |
| Karnataka | 440,411 | 9,464 | 334,999 | 7,086 |
| Uttar Pradesh | 299,045 | 7,016 | 227,442 | 4,282 |
| Delhi | 209,748 | 4,266 | 178,154 | 4,687 |
| west bengal | 196,332 | 3,157 | 169,043 | 3,828 |
| Bihar | 155,445 | 1,660 | 139,458 | 797 |
| Telangana | 154,880 | 2,278 | 121,925 | 950 |
| Odisha | 143,117 | 3,996 | 112,062 | 658 |
On Friday, more than 97,500 new cases were detected across the country, bringing the total number of confirmed infections to 46.59 lakh, of which more than 36.24 lakh, or about 78 percent have recovered from the illness. The number of active cases is now 9.58 lakh.
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