New Delhi: After weeks of continuous decline, India’s Covid-19 R value — a key parameter to measure the rate of the spread an infection — remained steady at 0.88 this week, even as several high-burden states saw an upward trend in their infection rates.
R value represents the number of people one patient can infect. A number below 1 means the number of active cases is declining.
India’s R had decreased last week to the lowest ever value of 0.88.
“Good news is that most of the top states (in terms of active case numbers) have managed to decrease R to values lower than 1. These include Kerala and West Bengal, both of which had R over 1 last week,” Sitabhra Sinha, researcher at the Institute of Mathematical Sciences in Chennai, told ThePrint.
However, Delhi continues to have a high R, with the value having increased marginally in the last week from 1.13 to 1.14. Delhi is witnessing a Covid surge with a fresh spurt of infections pushing up active cases.
States recording increase in R
Maharashtra has maintained its R below 1, but the value rose from last week’s 0.88 to 0.90 this week.
Unlike the past few weeks when most high-burden states showed downward trends, several of them saw an increase in their R values this week.
“Rajasthan and Haryana are the new entrants into the top states’ list with both having R more than 1,” Sinha said.
With a R over 1 for over a month since 11 September, Rajasthan had stayed in the list of 13 worst-affected states. However, the state’s R value dipped to 0.83 last week, only to shoot up again to 1.12 this week.
Haryana too has made an entry into the worst-affected states’ list. Between 8 and 19 October, the state is estimated to have kept its R value below 1. However, Sinha estimates that Haryana’s R rose to 1.16 — the highest among the top 13 — since 25 October.
Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Odisha also saw a small rise in their R values, though all are below 1.
For Telangana, the value rose from 0.83 to 0.94 this week, while Andhra Pradesh saw the figure go up from 0.79 to 0.80. The R value in Chhattisgarh and Odisha increased from 0.90 and 0.82 last week to 0.97 and 0.90, respectively.
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States where R declined
Despite the increase in most high-burden states, the fact that states like Kerala, Karnataka and West Bengal saw a decline in R value seems to have kept India’s overall R from rising.
Kerala, the state with the second highest number of active cases, saw its R drop below 1. Between 4 September and 1 October, the state had seen high values of R. Around 20 October, the value had dipped to 0.94, but rose to 1.07 again last week. This week, the R for Kerala dropped to 0.90.
West Bengal too saw a decline in its R value from 1.06 last week to 0.98 this week.
Karnataka, the state with the third highest number of active cases, saw its R value decrease from 0.74 to 0.55 this week — the lowest now among the worst performing states.
Major metros
Apart from Delhi, Kolkata and Pune also have R above 1 now.
The R value for Kolkata rose from 0.95 last week to 1.02 while Pune’s increased from 0.92 to 1.06.
Mumbai, which had R close to 1 last week, now has the value at 0.91. Meanwhile, Bengaluru saw a sharp decline in R from 0.77 to 0.38 this week.
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Like US, India politicians decides how its lost controlled COVID epidemic “R” and infections should be reported for its widely infected population.
Hindustan Times: The prevalence of antibodies for Covid-19 rose from 29.1% to roughly 33% between August and September, according to the initial findings of the serological survey in Delhi, senior officials in the Capital’s administration said on Wednesday.
If extrapolated to the roughly 20 million Delhi population, the finding implies 6.5 million people may now have been silently exposed to the virus in Delhi alone, with at least 400Millions infected in entire country.
99% of all Singapore infections (58,036) comes from its 200,000 India-Bangladesh workers & visitors is not an coincidence. India visitors continue to be its single largest imported source. Almost all India arrivals are found infected to enjoy free medical and Sg gov mandated salary payment, what a paradise.
China has also just found out many of India gov guaranteed & tested COVID-free arrivals on special India flight are infected.
Myanmar also found all India arrivals are infected, causing it to ban India flights. India illegal migrants crossing via border were caught responsible for spreading and causing its recent outbreak.
Can anyone still trust India testing system and reporting?