New Delhi: The effective reproduction number or R value for Covid in India — an indicator of how fast the infection is spreading — has remained steady for almost a month at 0.94, although several states and metro cities have R above 1.
R is the average number of people who are expected to get infected from one sick person. R should be below one for the pandemic to come to an end.
“The good news is that India continues to show the same R of 0.94 as before and fewer of the top states in terms of active cases have R over 1,” Sitabhra Sinha, a researcher at the Institute of Mathematical Sciences in Chennai, told ThePrint.
Telangana, Jammu Kashmir and Karnataka continue to have R over 1. While Telangana and Jammu Kashmir have R similar to last week at 1.05 and 1.08, respectively, Karnataka saw its R value rise to 1.12 from 1.09.
Mizoram, which had R over 1 since around 16 November, saw the value fall from 1.11 to 0.89. Similarly, Odisha’s R value went from 1.08 to 0.78 over the last week.
Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal all have R close to one. While for Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu, the value is at 0.97, for West Bengal it is 0.98.
Also read: India’s Covid R remains steady at 0.94, but several states now have values over 1
Major metros
All major metros have R above 1.
“But the bad news is that all major metros have R over 1, Kolkata has just around 1,” Sinha said.
Bengaluru’s R increased from 0.88 to 1.04 this week, while Chennai’s went from 0.96 to 1.04. Pune’s R remains the same as last week at 1.13, while that of Mumbai increased from 1.09 to 1.1.
Kolkata’s R is about 0.95, data in the recent days indicates that it may have risen closer to 1, Sinha said.
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