1 million cases later: How India is placed on COVID-19 graph
India which recorded another single-day spike of 34,956 COVID 19 cases on Friday (July 17) reached the 1-million mark from five lakh cases in just 20 days.
Data revealed that of the total cases, 40 per cent or 4.18 lakh infections were reported in the last 17 days. Up to April 1, the country had just 1,833 cases, including the first reported case on January 30 in Kerala. In April, the country reported 33,531 cases, and in May 1.55 lakh cases were reported. June saw an increase of 3.94 lakh cases. The sudden surge was observed after Unlock process began on June 1.
Currently, the number of active cases in India stands at 3,42,473 while 6,35,756 patients have recovered as on July 17. The death toll is 25,602 for the same period.
Fewer deaths, more recoveries
Despite the surge in cases, a decreasing death rate and increased recovery rate are the two positive aspects of the nation’s fight against coronavirus. The country has constantly managed to keep its death rate low – 3.5 deaths per hundred patients or below that – since the beginning of the pandemic. The rate saw a sudden spike of a half per cent on June 17 after the revision of the death toll by many states in the country. It again declined to 2.6 per cent on July 17, according to the ministry of health.
The total number of deaths now stands at 25,602 while around one third (8,709 deaths) have been reported in the last 17 days itself.
The recovery rate is on a constant rise with 6,35,756 patients having recovered so far. The recovery rate stands at 63.3 per cent as on Friday. Approximately half of the patients (47.33 per cent) reported a recovery in the month of July. The exact count of recovered patients from July 1 stands at 3,00,935 individuals.
Increased testing
India has the third-highest caseload in the world followed by the United States of America (35.76 lakh cases) and Brazil (20.12 lakh cases). The country has increased its testing capacity over the last two months to approximately 3 lakh tests per day.
According to a PTI report, the White House Press Secretary on Thursday said that the United States has done the maximum – 42 million –number of tests which is more than any country in the world. “The country with the next highest number is India at 12 million (tests),” she added.
Currently, there are 880 government labs while 364 private labs are operational across all the states and union territories. A total of 1,244 labs are testing around 3 lakh samples every day.
Where do the states stand?
While Maharashtra (2.84 lakh cases) and Tamil Nadu (1.56 lakh cases) have the highest number of cases in the country, Karnataka (51,422 cases) is soon to be the next hotspot state in the country. The rate of increase in the number of cases in the state has reached 8.82 per cent as of July 17.
The rate of increase is calculated as the number of fresh cases compared to the total number of cases.
Odisha and Assam also have reported higher increasing rates in the past 10 days. Their rate of increase in cases stands at 5.59 and 5.83 per cent, respectively.
Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu have 3.13 and 3 per cent rate of increase respectively while Delhi has reported a steep decline in the same after a decrease in the number of cases over the past few days.