The city has added 43,109 new cases (11% increase) since last week, nearly one in six of all reported cases in India. This has brought Delhi’s total case load to more than 500,000. With more and more patients in treatment, Delhi is now one of the eight states and territories in the Union with a recovery rate below 90%.
This is another reminder that controlling the virus once is not enough and that outbreaks can reappear in even more serious forms. Overcrowding during Durga Puja and Diwali has left a trail of infections, making Christmas at the peak of winter the next big challenge for urban India. Low temperatures, such as high pollution, are said to be linked to a more dangerous spread of the virus.
The limit of 50 guests for weddings in Delhi has returned, and the city government is considering a closure of markets that become hotspots.
A poll by Local Circles shows that 74% of Delhiites favor some kind of non-essential market and store closures, after social distancing rules were widely violated last week.
Neighboring Haryana and, increasingly, Rajasthan, are also fighting new outbreaks. Only Delhi, Kerala, Maharashtra and West Bengal reported more new cases than they did in the past week. These six states accounted for 60% of the almost 275,000 new cases reported in India in the period.
By now, Delhi’s latest wave of infections has also started to claim more and more lives. The death toll rose 9% and accounted for 21% of all new deaths in India last week. Only Kerala had a faster growth rate (10%) in the death count among the major states. Odisha’s toll increased 7%.
With this, India’s death count reached 131,578 on Thursday, an increase of 3% from last week. All weekly trends are based on seven-day moving averages to minimize the effect of volatile and lagging reports. National and state data come from the Union Ministry of Health.
Among the 314 districts with more than 5,000 confirmed cases so far, those with the worst spikes of infections in the past seven days were Faridabad (14%), Gurugram (14%), Hisar (13%) and Bhiwani (13%) ). all in Haryana, shows data from howindialives.com. Kerala has five districts in the top 10.
Deaths increased the most in Nadia (10%) in West Bengal, and Malappuram (10%) and Thiruvananthapuram (8%) in Kerala. Data by district does not include Delhi.
Over the past fortnight, the positivity rate has increased in Delhi, Kerala, West Bengal, Haryana and Rajasthan, data from covid19india.org showed. The high tests show that Delhi and Kerala are making efforts to find the infected, but an increase in positivity shows that even that may not be enough.
Rajasthan and Maharashtra have the lowest testing rates. With the outbreak intensifying in Rajasthan, the state will need to test more people to control the spread.
India’s total coronavirus patient count rose to 8,958,483 as of Thursday morning, of which only 443,303 are still in treatment.
The United States reported the highest proportion (27%) of new coronavirus cases in the past week, followed by India (7%) and Brazil (5%). India’s share marks a significant improvement over the past two months: it reported nearly a third of all daily cases in the world in September.
Among the new deaths reported last week, the US and India had a share of 13% and 5%, respectively. The global count of coronavirus cases has surpassed 56 million, including 1.3 million deaths, data from Johns Hopkins University showed.
After Pfizer’s big announcement last week, another pharmaceutical company, Moderna, has made a breakthrough in the search for a covid-19 vaccine. The company’s experimental vaccine was found to be 94.5% effective in phase 3 trials. While the two positive developments within a week have spread joy and hope, the reality is that it could still be months away. for a real vaccine.
Until it arrives, states in India that appear to have said goodbye to the worst must remain on guard to avoid a repeat of Delhi and Kerala.
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