India’s Covid R value steady at 0.90, but Kerala’s infection rate increases to 1.05

Apart from Kerala, the top 15 states with highest number of active cases have all managed to keep their R value under 1.

A health worker wearing protective gear collects a swab sample during a campaign to detect coronavirus spread in Mumbai, 21 November 2020 | PTI

New Delhi: India’s effective reproduction number ‘R’ for Covid-19 — a key parameter to measure the rate of infection — has remained the same as last week at 0.90.

R value represents the number of people one patient can infect. R value below 1 means the number of active cases are declining.

Kerala, however, saw an increase in its R value from 1.04 to 1.05 this week. This is particularly concerning since the state already has the highest number of active cases in the country.

Sithabhra Sinha, a researcher at the Institute of Mathematical Sciences in Chennai who has been tracking R value for India, told ThePrint that Kerala will continue to have the highest number of active cases unless it somehow manages to bring the R down to 0.85 next week.

Apart from Kerala, the top 15 states with the highest number of active cases have all managed to keep their R values under 1.

Gujarat, Delhi, Haryana see increase in R

However, a number of states saw an increase in R values.

For Gujarat, the R value was 0.89 last week, which increased to 0.93 this week. Similarly, Rajasthan’s R rose from 0.78 last week to 0.83 this week.

Delhi also saw a small rise in its R from 0.67 to 0.69 this week. Haryana’s R value also went up from 0.72 last week to 0.73.

India’s overall R value, however, did not see a rise as most states with high number of active cases saw a dip in their R.

Maharashtra, which has the second highest number of active cases, had R close to 1 last week. However, this has reduced to 0.86 this week. Uttar Pradesh, too, saw a slight dip in its R from 0.92 to 0.91 this week.

Karnataka’s R went down to 0.82 from 0.91 last week.

Mumbai’s R is above 1

Mumbai’s R value was recorded at 1.10.

Pune’s R had dropped to 0.55 last week, but the value has once again increased this week and is nearly 1, according to Sinha.

Chennai’s R was 1 last week, but the value has now reduced to 0.90. Kolkata’s R was 0.83 last week and this week, the value has gone down to 0.76.

Meanwhile, Bengaluru’s R is at 0.81 this week, having reduced from last week’s 0.84.