R Sukumar

This is the story of seven states: Delhi, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, and Uttar Pradesh. It is a dated story, but not too old – dated midnight Sunday, April 19, just before parts of India opened up for some business activities. At the time, these seven states accounted for 77.44% of all coronavirus disease (Covid-19) patients and 81.89% of all Covid-19 deaths in the country.

They were also the only states at the time with an infection count exceeding 1,000.

Andhra Pradesh (647 cases on Sunday) and Telangana (858) look likely to join them, but it is safe to say that the six states named in the first instance are key to India’s ability to halt the spread of Covid-19.

The only other concern is West Bengal , which is a clear straggler among large states in terms of testing (56 tests per million population based on Sunday’s data), but we will revisit the state when there’s better data coming out of it.

Here’s a quick snapshot on how the seven states compare on key parameters.