October 22, 2020 11:19:26 am
Women commuting to work ride a local Mumbai train on the Harbor line on October 21, 2020. Indian Railways has now allowed women, in addition to essential workers, to board trains amid the Covid-19 pandemic . (Express photo: Amit Chakravarty)
The number of active cases of coronavirus infection in the country is now more than three lakh less than the peak that was achieved in mid October. It’s only been five days since September 17 when the detection of new infections has exceeded the number of people recovering from the disease.
Wednesday saw one of the biggest drops in active cases. Some 56,000 new cases were detected while nearly 80,000 patients were reported to have recovered. The total number of active cases has dropped to 7.15 lakh now. At its peak, it had crossed 10.17 lakh.
Daily Increase in Covid-19 Cases in India.
Almost half of this reduction has come from maharashtra, where active cases have dropped from more than three lakh to less than 1.6 lakh now. In relative terms, the biggest drop has been in Andhra Pradesh, where its active cases have dropped by almost 70% in the last month and a half. The state had more than one lakh of active cases in the first week of September, which has steadily dropped to about 32,000 now.
Over the past week, Andhra Pradesh has contributed fewer than 4,000 cases per day, a vast improvement over the days when it regularly reported over 10,000 new infections daily.
In the past week, active cases have decreased in all major states except Delhi and West Bengal. Even Kerala, the fastest growing state at the moment, has seen a small drop in active cases in the last week. Bihar, which has slowed down considerably in the last month and a half, has also seen a slight increase in active cases during this time. 📣 Click to follow Express Explained on Telegram
Except for the usual drop on Monday, Delhi has continued to trend upward for more than a week. This is now the third phase of increase occurring in Delhi. In the second phase, it had peaked at nearly 4,500 new cases per day, before dropping to nearly 2,000 per day. Over the past eight days, their daily detections have once again exceeded 3,000 and are still increasing. On Wednesday, nearly 3,700 new cases were found in Delhi, the highest since Sept. 25.
Coronavirus Cases in India: Top 10 States with Maximum Case Burden.
West Bengal has been adding between 3,000 and 4,000 cases, steadily for the past 45 days. Their numbers haven’t fluctuated even on Mondays, because Wednesday’s test numbers don’t drop significantly on Sundays. In the past two days, however, the state has reported more than 4,000 cases for the first time. The state has about 36,000 active cases at this time. It has also consistently reported 50 to 60 coronavirus-related deaths since early September.
On Wednesday, Kerala was the largest contributor of new infections in the country. This is the third time in the last two weeks that Kerala has emerged as the largest contributor of cases, reporting more cases than even Maharashtra or Karnataka. The state reported more than 8,300 new infections Wednesday, slightly more than Maharashtra, which has seen a very rapid decline in its daily case detections in recent weeks.
Kerala has more than 93,000 active cases at this time, more than any other state except Maharashtra and Karnataka. The state is also showing the fastest growth in the number of infections anywhere in the country. Its current growth rate of 2.37 percent per day is more than three times the national rate.
The total number of people who have so far been infected with the virus crossed 77 lakh on Wednesday. The United States, which has witnessed a new resurgence of cases, has so far recorded more than 81 lakh of infections. Currently, the United States contributes more cases each day than India.
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