New Delhi: In the last two days, India reported over a 1.5 lakh Covid cases. The rise in daily positive cases is beginning to send the positivity rate upward even though over 9 lakh tests were done.
Uttar Pradesh alone is testing over 1.3 lakh but the state, after Delhi’s experience of a second spike thanks to antigen tests, may need to take a relook at its antigen-RT-PCR test split.
Active cases
Active cases currently comprise 21.9 per cent of the total cases in the country. The number of recoveries are now 3.5 times that of active cases. This is an important parameter of the progress of a pandemic as the total disease burden over a period of time is a huge figure that can often be misleading.
Number of deaths
For the third day in a row, India reported over 1,000 deaths, taking the total toll to 61,529. Even as the government cites only percentages, it is a fact that a single disease killing over a 1,000 people daily is a rarity. Tuberculosis kills 1,400 a day.
Mortality rate
Nationally, the case fatality rate (CFR) in the country currently stands at 1.82 per cent. In a meeting with nine states that have over 82 per cent of the country’s disease burden, the cabinet secretary asked them to bring the CFR below 1 and ensure that all contact tracing is completed within 72 hours.
Daily tests
India tested more than 9 lakh Covid-19 samples for the second consecutive day, keeping with the ‘Test, Track and Treat’ strategy of the government. India has already created a capacity of doing 10 lakh tests per day. In the past 24 hours, 9,01,338 samples were tested.
Positivity rate
The small dip in testing numbers is not the reason why the positivity rate has shown a small increase today. It is because in the last 24 hours, India scaled yet another high in daily cases — 77,266 cases have been added to the already high numbers. At this rate of growth, even a testing capacity of a million tests per day will not be sufficient.
Recovered cases
With more patients recovering and being discharged from home isolation (mild and moderate cases) and hospitals (severe and critical cases), India’s Covid-19 recoveries is nearing 26 lakh. In the past 24 hours, 60,177 have recovered, taking the recovery rate to 76.28 per cent.
Total cases
India’s total disease burden currently stands at 33,87,500, which is among the highest in the world. What is more worrying is that India has been reporting the highest number of daily cases globally for many weeks now. In the last two days alone, the country added over 1.5 lakh cases.
High burden states
Ever since Uttar Pradesh made its entry into the club of high burden states, the last to do so, it has managed to step up its testing game in a big way. At the same time, it has managed to keep its daily positives relatively low. With 5,391 fresh cases and 76 deaths in the last 24 hours, the state has now touched 2,08,419 cases.
Maharashtra now has a total of 7,33,568 Covid cases, of which 14,857 cases and 360 deaths were reported in the last 24 hours. It’s doubling time currently stands at 38 days, against a national average of 32.5 days.
Andhra Pradesh, with 3,93,090 cases, has seen the pandemic grow at a rate of 2.74 per cent, with a doubling time of 26 days. In the last 24 hours, 10,621 cases and 92 deaths were reported.
Karnataka recorded a total of 3,09,792 cases, of which 70.87 per cent have recovered. Cases in the state are growing at the rate of 2.71 per cent while the case fatality rate is at 1.70 per cent. The doubling time is 26.6 days.
Tamil Nadu reported 5,981 cases and 109 deaths in the last 24 hours, taking its Covid total to 4,03,442.
Tests and positive cases
Uttar Pradesh has again tested the most — a little less than double that of Tamil Nadu which is at number two among the top five high burden states. After the Delhi experience, when a second spike is being blamed on antigen tests, the state may need to look at the antigen-RTPCR breakup though.