New Delhi: While two records in a day — the most number of tests and most positives ever recorded — managed to bring down the positivity rate of Covid-19 a little, the transmission rate of the infection in India has shown a spike, according to the weekly calculation of R value by researchers at the Institute of Mathematical Sciences.
Many states are showing sustained high testing numbers but a full breakup of antigen and RT-PCR tests may need to be given out by each state before any assessment can be made.
R value
The R value is a measure of the rate of transmission of an infectious disease and measures the number of people each infected person is likely to spread the disease to. India’s R value was at its lowest ever last week at 1.04 but has now spiked again to 1.09 showing that the disease is coming back with some force.
Active cases
With 83,883 cases being reported in the last 24 hours, the total active cases in the country have currently crossed 8 lakh and is a little less than a quarter of the country’s total case load.
Number of deaths
For the second day in a row, India crossed 1,000 deaths due to Covid-19, taking the total to 67,376. The deaths per million population in India is 48 deaths/million population. This figure is frequently flaunted to show how well India has done on Covid-19.
Mortality rate
The case fatality rate (CFR) of the national average stands at 1.76 per cent, but the rate in several states is already lower than this value as the graph above shows. Experts say many factors contribute to CFR, including the efficiency of contact tracing operations, the speed at which medical help reaches those who need them and the percentage of elderly people infected.
Daily tests
Over 11.7 lakh (11,72,179) tests were done in the last 24 hours. With this achievement, the cumulative tests are more than 4.5 crore (4,55,09,380). This demonstrates an exponential increase in daily Covid-19 testing in the country. From conducting merely 10 tests per day on 30 January, the daily average has crossed more than 11 lakh today.
Positivity rate
The record testing numbers have ensured that despite the highest number of positives recorded in 24 hours ever, India’s positivity rate has dipped slightly. This is important because it gives a sense of whether the number of daily tests is sufficient to detect accurately the actual spread of the disease in a community.
Recovered cases
Close to 30 lakh patients have now recovered from Covid-19 in the country, with many of them staying in home isolation under active medical supervision. To build capacities of ICU doctors in clinical management of critical patients in order to reduce fatalities, e-ICU has been started by AIIMS, New Delhi. Twice a week, on Tuesdays and Fridays, tele/video consultation sessions are held by knowledge and domain experts for the doctors manning ICUs in the state hospitals. These sessions began on 8 July 2020.
Total cases
With total cases nearing the 40 lakh mark, India is probably only a couple of weeks away from replacing Brazil as the country with the second most number of Covid-19 cases. Though almost three-fourths of this number is of recovered cases, the total number does look daunting.
High burden states
Maharashtra’s tally of 8,25,739 cases include 17,433 cases and 294 deaths in the last 24 hours. The daily positives in the state are on a steep upward trajectory. The state has a doubling time of almost 36 days.
While its 4,55,531 cases may have pushed it to the second spot among high burden states, Andhra Pradesh can draw solace from its case fatality rate of 0.91 per cent, which is lower than the target of 1 set some time back by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and reiterated at a meeting chaired by a cabinet secretary last week.
While Uttar Pradesh’s tally of 2,41,439 may seem small compared to some of the other states on this list, it has reached that mark within a very short period of time. Though that is a cause for worry, the testing numbers may be an example for many states.
With a total of 3,61,341 cases, of which 9,860 were reported in the last 24 hours, Karnataka is growing at the rate of 2.67 per cent. It has a doubling time of close to 27 days and a case fatality rate of 1.65 per cent.
With 4,39,959 cases and at a growth rate of 1.47 per cent, Tamil Nadu is still one of the problem states in the country in terms of numbers. The case fatality rate of 1.71 per cent in the state, however, remains marginally below the national average. The doubling time currently stands at 49 days.
Tests and positive cases
Maharashtra, it seems, is finally out of the Ganesh Chaturthi mood to push up testing though Uttar Pradesh remains the leader among high burden states and interestingly with a fairly low number of positives. It is now becoming important that all states give out data on how much antigen testing they are doing as the false negatives in those tests can affect the rate of detection of cases.