Why Kerala could re-enter the top 10 states soon

A Covid hospital built by Tata Group in Kasaragod in Kerala. It was handed over to the state government on September 10.

Coronavirus cases in India: With more than 18,000 new cases detected in the last three days, Kerala has become the state with the fastest growing number of coronavirus right now. Kerala still has a relatively smaller number of confirmed infections compared to states like Maharashtra or Andhra Pradesh, but at the rate at which it has been adding new cases in recent weeks, everything is set to re-enter the list. of the ten states with the highest case load in a few days.

In the last week, nearly 35,000 new cases have been discovered in the state, bringing the total number of confirmed infections to 1.61 lakh. The current growth rate of cases is 3.51 percent per day, which is the highest in the country and more than double the national rate, which is 1.53 percent per day.

Kerala also has about 49,000 active cases, which is the fifth highest in the country. Only Maharashtra, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, and Uttar Pradesh have more active cases.

Daily new cases in Kerala in September.

On Thursday, Prime Minister Pinarayi Vijayan described the situation as dire. “There is a sharp increase in the number of positive cases in many districts. We are going into a serious situation ”, he had said.

Health economist and visiting professor at IIM Kozhikode, Professor Rijo M John, has said that the recent surge in the state could be the result of relatively low testing as many cases remain undetected. “While the case has been growing, Kerala is not intensifying testing. Without further testing, we cannot even predict the peak of Covid19 cases in the state, ”he said.

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Kerala had been a slow beginner at conducting diagnostic tests. It has recovered in recent months, but as Dr. Fazal Ghafoor, a member of the expert committee that advises the state government on managing Covid19, said, much more testing was needed. The state has tested 26.57 lakh so far. Over the past three days, it has been testing over 50,000 samples, which is an improvement over the previous weeks. Increased testing has also contributed to more cases being detected.

As on Friday, active cases in the country fell to 9.6 lakh from a high of 10.17 on September 17.

Meanwhile, recoveries once again significantly outpaced the detection of new cases in the country on Friday. More than 93,000 Covid19 patients were declared to have recovered, while more than 85,000 new infections were detected. This brings the number of people infected with the virus at some point to 59.03 lakh, of which 48.49 lakh, or just over 82 percent, have recovered.

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In seven of the past eight days, recoveries have exceeded new case detection, leading to a significant drop in active cases. As on Friday, active cases in the country fell to 9.6 lakh from a high of 10.17 on September 17.

Top ten states with the highest case load

The number of confirmed infections in Maharashtra has now reached 13 lakh. About 18,000 new cases were reported by the state on Friday, well below the recent normal of 22,000 to 25,000 cases per day. The death toll in the state has exceeded 35,000, which is more than 37 percent of all coronavirus-related deaths in the country.

Odisha now has more than 2 lakh of people who have been infected with the virus so far. The state has been reporting more than 4,000 cases each day.

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