Updated: October 10, 2020 3:59:32 pm
Mumbai: Central Railway (CR) installation of automated gates at Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus (CSMT), to access the concourse and platform area for long-distance train passengers, in Mumbai on Thursday. (PTI)
For seven days in a row, the detection of new cases of coronavirus infection in the country has remained below the number of people recovering from the disease. This is the longest uninterrupted run of this trend so far.
New detections have remained lower than recoveries in 17 of the last 22 days, resulting in a significant reduction in the number of active cases in the country, from a high of 10.17 lakh to less than 8.9 lakh. On Friday, around 73,000 new infections were detected, while nearly 83,000 people were declared to have recovered from the disease.
New cases that remain below recoveries is a very welcome trend, as it could be an indication that the epidemic has peaked, at least when the trend continues for at least a few weeks in a row. In the current epidemic, however, it is still too early to speak of a peak, as the epidemic is nowhere near having run its course. An epidemic like this can end only if not enough people are left for the virus to infect, or if people have become immune to the virus through vaccination. None of this has happened at this time. (Follow Coronavirus India LIVE updates)
Daily cases since September 16.
The current downward trend in daily numbers may therefore only be a temporary phenomenon, without a very good explanation at the moment. It can change at any time, as has happened in the case of Delhi and Kerala. But as long as it continues, it will help ease the burden on the healthcare infrastructure.
One of the main reasons for the relatively lower figures nationwide has been the significant drop in infections reported by Maharashtra. In the past 20 days, Maharashtra has reported around 16,000 new cases every day, on average. In the 20 days prior to that, it had found around 20,000 cases on average. The result has been that in the past 20 days, the number of active cases in the state has dropped from 3 lakh to approximately 2.35 lakh. That’s roughly 27 percent of all active cases in the country.
Ten states with maximum case load
| STATE | TOTAL CASES | NEW CASES | TOTAL RECOVERIES | DECEASED |
| Maharashtra | 1,506,018 | 12,134 | 1,229,339 | 40,188 |
| Andhra Pradesh | 744,864 | 5,145 | 691,040 | 6,159 |
| Karnataka | 690,269 | 10,913 | 561,610 | 9,808 |
| Tamil nadu | 646,128 | 5,185 | 591,811 | 10,120 |
| Uttar Pradesh | 430,666 | 3,207 | 383,086 | 6,293 |
| Delhi | 303,693 | 2,860 | 276,046 | 5,692 |
| west bengal | 287,603 | 3,573 | 252,806 | 5,501 |
| Kerala | 268,100 | 9,250 | 175,304 | 989 |
| Odisha * | 246,839 | 2,697 | 220,388 | 1,044 |
| Telangana | 210,346 | 1,811 | 183,025 | 1,217 |
(Data for Odisha until October 8, 2020. Other data until October 9, 2020)
Andhra Pradesh, the state with the second highest number of cases in the country, is also undergoing a similar decline. Its daily numbers have dropped to a 5,000 level now, half of what it reported three weeks ago.
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Meanwhile, the increase in Kerala continues. After a day of surprisingly sharp decline in new infections, Kerala reported another jump on Friday. The state had reported more than 10,000 cases for the first time on Wednesday, but the number fell to fewer than 5,500 the next day. On Friday, the number recovered to more than 9,200.
Kerala Health Minister KK Shailaja said this number is likely to increase further in the coming days. ” Our expectation is for the daily numbers to peak at around 20,000. Our effort is to keep it below 15,000 a day. We hope that by November, this number will begin to decrease, ”Shailaja told The Indian Express.
Shailaja cited several reasons for the increase in the number. “During June and September, around nine lakh people returned to the state. As Kerala is, it is a very densely populated state. Then we had Onam, and people didn’t follow the rules properly during the festival. So there was an increase in cases in August. After that, there have been opposition protests against the state government and large rallies have been organized. Not only did it increase the cases, but it also gave the feeling that the government was imposing unnecessary restrictions, “he said.
But Dr. Mohammad Asheel, executive director of the Kerala Social Security Mission who has worked in public health, said the Kerala figures were nothing to be surprised about.
“The important thing is not whether the daily figures have exceeded 5,000 or 10,000. The important thing is whether our public health systems have the capacity to attend 5,000 or 10,000 cases a day. And, here, I think Kerala has done well in all these months to strengthen its capabilities, so now it is in a much better position to cope with this increase in numbers, “he said.
He also noted the low death toll in the state. “The main objective in Kerala has been to minimize deaths. And I think he has done reasonably well on that front. Look, once the pandemic is over, the only metric that would matter is how many people we lost to the disease. And this is very important. Even though the infection numbers have risen sharply in recent days, just look at the case fatality rate. It is lower than in May and June, lower than in August. It is constantly decreasing. Ultimately, how well a government was able to handle the pandemic would come down to this, ”he said.
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