Updated: October 6, 2020 10:22:30 pm
Shoppers in protective masks walk past vendors at the Mullick Ghat flower market in Kolkata. (Photographer: Arko Datto / Bloomberg)
Coronavirus cases in India: New detection of coronavirus cases fell further on Monday, this time aided by the low tests that occur on Sundays. Nearly 61,000 new cases were discovered nationwide, the lowest level in about six weeks. It was in August that India had been reporting between 60,000 and 70,000 cases a day.
In fact, Maharashtra, the state with the highest number of cases, reported nearly 10,200 cases on Monday, its lowest level since Aug. 17. Andhra Pradesh had only about 4,200 cases, the lowest since July 20. Bihar reported fewer than 1,000 cases for the first time. since July 11, while Delhi had fewer than 2,000 cases after nearly a month.
Top ten states with the highest case load
What’s also notable was that the test numbers this Sunday weren’t significantly lower than on other days. Nearly 9.9 lakh of samples were analyzed on Sunday this time, while on each of the previous six days, around 11.7 lakh of tests were carried out on average. We have seen the test numbers drop much lower, to a level between 7 and 8 lakhs, the previous Sundays, and Monday’s case count has been much higher than this.
In fact, the daily positivity rate, or the rate of number of positive results and number of tests on each day, was only 5.62 percent on Monday. In other words, only 5.62 percent of people who got tested on Monday came back positive. This level of positivity has not been seen since May. But it must be said that this is misleading, mainly because the results of PCR tests usually arrive a day or two later. That is why the impact of low tests on one Sunday is seen only the next day.
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The total number of people who have so far been infected with the virus has reached 66.85 lakh, of which 56.62 lakh, or about 85 percent, have recovered from the disease.
It is always better to look at the overall positivity rate, that is, the ratio of the total number of positive cases and the total number of tests performed so far. This overall positivity rate has been dropping since the second week of August, when it peaked at around nine percent. But in recent days, the reduction has been much faster.
The drop in the positivity rate had started on August 10, after reaching 9.01 percent, and had dropped to 8.44 percent last Sunday, that is, on September 27, experiencing a steady decline but slow. In the following week, however, it has quickly fallen to 8.25 percent now.
A month has passed since the last large increase in cases occurred, and India first reported more than 90,000 cases in a day. In the next few days, a level of 98,000 cases per day was reached, and it seemed only a matter of time before new daily detections crossed the one lakh mark. However, the daily numbers have remained surprisingly stable after that, dropping to the 80,000 and even higher. During this time, daily recoveries have exceeded the detection of new cases, which has been a welcome drop in active cases in the country.
In fact, over the past three weeks, active cases have dropped by nearly one lakh, nearly ten percent from a level of 10.17 lakh on September 17 to 9.19 lakh now. Of course, the 20,000 deaths in these three weeks have also contributed to the reduction of active cases. But such a steady and significant decline in active cases has never occurred during this pandemic.
The total number of people so far infected with the virus has reached 66.85 lakh, of which 56.62 lakh, or about 85 percent, have recovered from the disease.
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