Daily cases hit new high for 3rd day

AFTER THE UNITED STATES AND BRAZIL, INDIA IS THE THIRD WORST-HIT COUNTRY IN THE WORLD WITH 1,335,501 CASES, AND 31,394 FATALITIES THAT HAVE BEEN RECORDED IN NEARLY FIVE MONTHS SINCE THE FIRST CASE ON MARCH 2

NEW DELHI: With the highest single-day spike of 48,887 cases of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19), India’s tally of infections crossed the 1.3 million-mark on Friday. This was the third day in a row that India reported a record for new cases.

After the United States and Brazil, India is the third worsthit country in the world with 1,335,501 cases, and 31,394 fatalities that have been recorded in nearly five months since the first case on March 2.

While Maharashtra, Delhi and Tamil Nadu were responsible for nearly two out of every three new infections reported till early July, the latest burst of cases are the result of the spread of the virus to other states such as Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Bihar, Gujarat, Karnataka, Telangana, Uttar Pradesh, and West Bengal.

On Friday, Maharashtra reported 9,615 new cases, the highest in the country, followed by Andhra Pradesh’s 8,147 and Tamil Nadu’s 6,785 cases, taking the total tallies in these regions to 357,117, 80,858 and 199,749 respectively. Delhi, with the third highest number of total cases in the country, reported 1,025 new infections.

Total cases in the national capital are now at 128,389, according to HT’s Covid-19 dashboard.

As of Friday, the number of active cases in the country stands at 454,307, while 849,800 people (63.6% of those infected) have been cured or discharged.

In the last week, India has added an average of 42,346 cases a day, up from 31,097 a day in the seven-day period before that.

HT reported on Thursday that India’s trajectory of average new cases has overtaken Brazil’s and stands second only to that of the United States.

On the back of the steady rise in the number of cases in the past week, the doubling rate of cases — the number of days it takes for a given number of infections to double — touched the lowest recorded in nearly a month. As of Friday, the doubling rate of cases was 19.3 days, the lowest since June 29.

On March 25, when the nationwide lockdown started, the doubling time of cases in the country based on the previous week’s rate of new cases was 3.4 days. In the second week of July, it touched the highest so far — 21 days. However, on the back of a week of consecutive drop in the doubling rate, the number now stands at 19.3 days.

India’s average weekly test positive rate has risen from 7.7% in mid-June to 11.6% at present, but the aggregate level statistics mask sharp differences in testing performance across the country. Maharashtra has a test positive rate close to 21%, while for Uttar Pradesh, this number is just a little over 4%.

With a total of 4,202,361 cases and more than 147,740 deaths, the United States remains the hardest-hit country in the world, with Brazil (2,303,661 cases and 84,440 deaths) and India trailing in second and third place in terms of total infection numbers. India’s case fatality rate (CFR) — the proportion of people who succumbed to the illness from among known infections — was 2.4%, much better than America’s fatality rate of 3.5% and Brazil’s 3.7%.

Together, these three countries continue to account for a large majority of new cases.