Despite spike in COVID-19 cases, northeast keeps deaths in check
The death rate due to COVID-19 in the north-eastern states has remained exceptionally low despite the spike in the number of positive cases. While the total number of cases in the eight north-eastern states has reached 57,232, the death toll is only 154 as of August 4.
The combined death rate of Assam, Meghalaya, Manipur, Nagaland, Mizoram, Sikkim, Tripura and Arunachal Pradesh is just 0.27 per cent compared to the national average of 2.10 per cent. The worst-hit states like Gujarat and Maharashtra have the highest death rate at 3.94 and 3.55 per cent, respectively.
The COVID-19 infection entered the region relatively late than the rest of India. Meanwhile, Assam, the largest home-state to millions of migrant labourers coming from the northeast, has been witnessing a surge in infections since the last week of June. The state has almost 80 per cent of the region’s total caseload. However, the death rate of the state stands at just 0.24 per cent. A similar trend can be seen in the other states as well.
Manipur has the highest death rate at 0.55 per cent among the north-eastern states. It has reported 2,920 cases and only seven deaths. More than 60 per cent (1,766) patients have recovered. Nagaland and Tripura which have 2,129 and 5,505 cases respectively, have a death rate of 0.51 per cent each.
Arunachal Pradesh (0.24 per cent) and Mizoram (0.23 per cent) have also reported low death rates. Meghalaya that has less than a thousand cases has not reported any deaths so far.
More recoveries
The states, barring Meghalaya and Nagaland – which reported cases a bit late than the others – the states have above 60 per cent recovery rate in COVID 19 cases. The recovery rate for Meghalaya and Nagaland are 29.27 and 30.86 per cent respectively as of August 4. Assam which has the highest number of cases has the highest recovery rate — 73.83 per cent — in the region.
The overall recovery rate of the northeast is 69.71 per cent, higher than the national average of 66.31 per cent.
The region has also pulled up its testing over the last two months. So far, they have conducted 14.68 lakh tests, almost matching up to Karnataka’s testing tally of 14.46 lakh tests. But the test positivity rate (TPR) is very much low in the region (4.02 per cent) compared to 9.65 per cent in Karnataka.
Nagaland has the worst TPR of 5.28 per cent while Assam, which has the highest caseload, has 4.5 per cent TPR. The TPR for the country stands at 8.89 per cent for the same period.
Almost one-third of the cases in the region has been reported over the last 10 days. This shows the trend of a sharp surge in the cases. Similarly, one-third of the deaths were added during the same time but the number and rate of deaths are relatively very low than the rest of India.