New Delhi: After increasing to 0.95 last week, India’s Covid-19 R value — a key parameter to measure the rate of the spread of an infection — reduced to 0.90 this week.
R value represents the number of people one patient can infect. A number below 1 means the number of active cases is declining.
“Most of the top states in terms of active case numbers have managed to keep R values lower than 1,” Sitabhra Sinha, a researcher at the Institute of Mathematical Sciences in Chennai who has been tracking the R value in India, told ThePrint.
Delhi, where the number of cases has been rapidly increasing over the past month, has also managed to bring its R down to less than 1 after a long time, Sinha said.
From 1.14, the capital’s R value has reduced to 0.86 this week.
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States with R above 1
Rajasthan, Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh have all recorded R values over 1, although their active case count is still relatively low, Sinha pointed out.
Rajasthan saw an increase in its R to 1.09 this week from 1.04. In the past, the state had sustained the value over 1 for over a month, which had caused cases in the state to increase. Gujarat’s R value remained 1.04 since last week.
Madhya Pradesh recently became one of the top 15 states with a high active caseload. Till about 6 November, the state’s R value was 0.84. Since then, it has increased to 1.10, which is the highest among the states with the most number of active cases.
States with decrease in R
The R in the states of Haryana and Telangana dipped below 1 this week.
While Haryana’s R value reduced to 0.96 from 1.18 last week, Telangana has an R value of 0.79 from 1.14 last week.
Kerala, which is the state with the second-highest number of active cases, saw a decrease in R value to 0.87 from 0.92 last week. West Bengal also saw a decline in its R value to 0.82 from 0.93. So did Uttar Pradesh, whose R value decreased to 0.92 from 0.99.
Last week, Andhra Pradesh and Odisha’s R values were at 0.96 and 0.94, respectively. This week, they have gone down to 0.80 and 0.74, respectively.
Tamil Nadu’s R value has reduced to 0.82 from 0.98 this week, as well.
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States with increasing R
Maharashtra, Karnataka and Chhattisgarh have seen an increase in their R values, although all three are still below 1.
For Maharashtra, the R is now at 0.93 from 0.84 last week. Karnataka’s R value had dipped to 0.66 last week, but it has increased to 0.84.
The R value of Chhattisgarh increased to 0.93 from 0.84.
Major metros
The R values for Pune and Bengaluru are now at 1.02 and 1.03, respectively. While last week Pune’s R value was 0.52, Bengaluru’s value was close to 1 last week.
Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata have R values at 0.80, 0.85 and 0.90, respectively.
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