New Delhi: For the first time in nearly six weeks, India’s R value for Covid — an indicator of how fast the infection is spreading — has risen again to 0.98. It was 0.90 last week.
According to Sitabhra Sinha from the Institute of Mathematical Sciences in Chennai who has been tracking the metric since the beginning of the pandemic, this does not bode well because the number is too close to 1.
R indicates the average number of people who get infected from a single Covid positive person — for the epidemic to come to an end, R should remain below one.
R for the state of Kerala has once again risen above 1. For the past four weeks, the state’s R had stayed steady at about 0.89 but it has increased to 1.08 over the last week.
Among states with the highest active cases, Himachal Pradesh has the highest R value of 1.22, increased from last week’s 1.20.
West Bengal’s R has also been rising over the last two weeks. Last week, the value had risen to 1.06 from 0.97 the week before. This week, the value has increased further to 1.07.
Telangana, too, has an R value above one. Over the past two weeks, the R value in the state has remained 1.06 — an increase from 0.92 around 19 October.
Sinha noted that the R value of Andhra Pradesh has increased as well and is hovering very close to 1.
Major metros show uptick in R value
Meanwhile, Delhi, Bengaluru and Kolkata all have an R over 1.
Bengaluru’s R was 0.93 last week, which has increased to 1.02. The value for Kolkata has decreased, however, from 1.14 last week to 1.11.
Delhi’s R is the same as last week at 1.10.
Pune’s R value has gone down to 0.39 from 0.84 last week, while Chennai’s R is now 0.90.
(Edited by Paramita Ghosh)
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