New Delhi: India’s effective reproduction number or R for Covid — an indicator of how fast the infection is spreading — continues to remain steady at 0.94.
R represents the average number of people who are likely to catch the disease from one infected person. The R value should remain below 1 for the epidemic to come to an end.
Over the last several weeks the R for India has stayed the same at 0.94, although several states and metros have been showing fluctuations.
Unlike last week, when several states were showing R above 1, none of the states which have a high burden of active cases have R above 1 this week.
Karnataka, which had the highest R value of 1.12 last week, now has R at 0.97. Jammu Kashmir’s R came down to 0.84 from 1.08 last week. In Telangana, R fell from 1.05 last week to 0.98 this week.
Odisha’s R value, meanwhile, increased from 0.78 to 0.83, while that of Andhra Pradesh increased from 0.84 to 0.91.
The R for Mizoram increased again to 0.91 from 0.89. West Bengal’s R is now at 0.99, a slight increase from 0.98 last week.
Both Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu have R values the same as last week, at 0.97.
All other states with high active cases have R below 1.
Major cities
Meanwhile, all the major cities have R over 1.
For Delhi, which had R at 0.89 till around 4 December, saw an increase to 1.26 last week. The value has, however, decreased to 1.12 this week.
Pune too has R at 1.12, a slight decrease from 1.13 last week. Mumbai’s R is at 1.10 — the same as last week.
Kolkata’s R was 0.95, which increased to 1.05 this week.
Both Chenna and Bengaluru had R at 1.04 last week. While Chennai’s R remains the same, that of Bengaluru increased to 1.07.
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