New Delhi: A day after Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan blamed “societal irresponsibility” for India’s rising Covid cases in the Lok Sabha Sunday, India’s sample positivity rate — which indicates whether testing is enough to catch the spread of infection in the community — shot up to 11.8 per cent.
While this may have been due to the weekend dip, India’s test numbers are showing fairly wide variations.
Active cases
A total of 86,961 cases in the last 24 hours have taken India’s total active cases to 10,03,299. The number of new cases, however, was less than the number of patients discharged in the last 24 hours.
Number of deaths
In the last three days, India reported 3,510 deaths, of which 1,130 occurred in the last 24 hours taking the total to 87,882. The case fatality rate in the country currently stands at 1.60 per cent, which is a figure that the government has used to claim success in the Covid battle.
Mortality rate
Punjab registered a slight dip in the mortality rate over the weekend, like the rest of the country, though the state continues to register the highest case fatality rate (CFR). Therefore, it is one of the seven states that will participate in a review meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi later this week.
Currently, Tamil Nadu, Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal, Puducherry, Delhi, Gujarat, Maharashtra and Punjab have a CFR higher than the national average.
Daily tests
India has tested a total of 6,43,92,594 samples for Covid-19 till now, but in a worrying development, the country’s daily testing numbers seem to be fluctuating. While India conducted a record 12,06,806 tests Saturday, 8,81,911 were conducted Friday, and a total of 7,31,534 tests were done Sunday.
Positivity rate
The sharp variations in daily testing numbers are also reflecting in the positivity rates. Over the last four days it has been 9.5 per cent, 10.5 per cent, 7.6 per cent and 11.8 per cent, respectively. India’s cumulative positivity is 8.52 per cent.
Recovered cases
India has crossed a significant landmark with a national recovery rate of more than 80 per cent. A total of 93,356 patients were discharged in the last 24 hours and 79 per cent of the new recovered cases are from 10 states or union territories. The total recovered cases are close 44 lakh (43,96,399). India tops the global figure of total recoveries and accounts for more than 19 per cent of the world total.
Total cases
The total Covid cases in the country currently stand at 54,87,580 with 2.70 lakh cases reported in the last three days. In the Lok Sabha Sunday, Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan said that India’s numbers are on the rise because of “societal irresponsibility”.
High burden states
Karnataka reported 8,191 cases and 101 deaths in the last 24 hours and the total cases in the state now stands at 5,19,537. The state has a doubling time of a little over 40 days against the national average of more than 41 days.
Maharashtra, with over a fifth of India’s active cases and a little less than a fourth of the total cases in the country, continues to be the worst-affected state. In the last 24 hours the state saw 20,627 new cases and 461 deaths.
Andhra Pradesh reported 7,738 cases and 57 deaths in the last 24 hours, taking its total to 6,25,514. The state currently has 78,836 active cases though its case fatality rate has remained good at 0.86 per cent.
Of Tamil Nadu’s 46,703 active cases, 5,516 were reported in the last 24 hours. The state looks better placed than most of the other high burden states. However, after having a case fatality rate of less than the national average throughout the pandemic, the rate is now higher than the national average of 1.60 per cent.
Uttar Pradesh‘s total case tally stands at 3,54,275, with 5,758 cases and 94 deaths registered in the last 24 hours. It has a doubling time of 39 days and a case fatality rate of 1.42 per cent. The state currently has 65,954 active cases.
Tests and positive cases
Testing levels in the five high burden states remain steady at the same levels as last week with not much change in either the number of samples tested or the numbers that tested positive.
However, Maharashtra and Karnataka have been asked to increase testing in view of the rising positivity rates.