New Delhi: India’s daily testing capacity may be of a million tests per day but in the last two weeks, the country has touched that mark only twice. The positivity rate is inching up again, with over 2 lakh cases being added to the national total in the last three days even as recoveries continue to happen.
Uttar Pradesh is currently the top high burden state when it comes to testing.
Active cases
In the last three days, India reported over 2 lakh cases, taking the total active cases to 7,81,975. Seven states have contributed to 70 per cent of these new cases in the last 24 hours. Of these, Maharashtra has contributed the maximum caseload of almost 21 per cent, followed by Andhra Pradesh (13.5 per cent), Karnataka (11.27 per cent) and Tamil Nadu (8.27 per cent). Uttar Pradesh with 8.27 per cent, West Bengal with 3.85 per cent, and Odisha with 3.84 per cent are the remaining states contributing to the increased caseload.
Number of deaths
For the last two days, daily deaths have been below 1,000 after four consecutive days when the number had breached that level. The total deaths reported so far are 64,469.
Mortality rate
Only Gujarat, with a case fatality rate of 3.16, and Maharashtra, where the figure stands at 3.13, are currently above 3. India’s case fatality rate stands at 1.78 per cent with only seven states reporting higher death rates than the national average.
Daily tests
Even as India claims that the current testing capacity is of one million tests a day, for the last two weeks, the country has been touching that figure only once a week — both times on a Saturday. In the last 24 hours, the number fell by a few notches to touch 8,46,278.
Positivity rate
For the first time since 23 August, the positivity rate has crossed 9 per cent. This may mean that India will soon have to push testing to much more than its capacity of a million per day and also open up paid testing to whoever wants to get it done.
Recovered cases
So far 27,74,801 people have recovered from Covid-19, with most of them staying in home isolation under active medical supervision. The recovery rate is now nearing 77 per cent.
Total cases
The total number of cases reported since 30 January is 36,21,245. Of these, about a fifth are active cases while others have recovered/died. Worryingly though, India is trying to open up public transport at a time when it has been reporting the highest daily cases in the world for many weeks now.
High burden states
At 7,80,689 cases, Maharashtra has almost a fifth of the country’s caseload. The growth rate is 1.94 per cent and the doubling time is 37 days against a national average of 32.5 days.
In the last 24 hours, Andhra Pradesh reported 10,603 cases and 88 deaths. The case fatality rate is 0.91 per cent and the doubling time is almost 27 days. The total number of cases currently stands at 4,24,767.
Uttar Pradesh broke into the top five high burden states only a few weeks back. In the last 24 hours, the state reported 6,185 cases and 67 deaths. It has a case fatality rate of 1.52 per cent.
The total number of cases in Tamil Nadu currently is 4,22,085 of which 6,495 cases and 94 deaths were reported in the last 24 hours with a growth rate of 1.54 per cent. The doubling time is almost 47 days.
As Karnataka prepares to open bars, its Covid-19 caseload is growing at the rate of 2.75 per cent, with 8,952 of its 3,35,928 cases being reported in the last 24 hours. There were also 106 deaths.
Tests and positive cases
Uttar Pradesh continues to test the most samples with 1,39,454 tests being done in the last 24 hours, followed by Tamil Nadu at 80,100. The country has so far tested 4.23 crore samples for Covid-19.