India's worst COVID-19 week: 4 lakh cases, 6,000 deaths in 7 days

The first week of August turned out to be the worst pandemic week for India as it reported around four lakh fresh cases of coronavirus, the highest, during this period.

With 3.92 lakh new cases and 6,000 related deaths in the past week, the country crossed the two-million mark on Friday (August 7). After the US, it recorded the highest growth in number of infections. The United States reported 3,21,163 cases during this period.

On an average, India reported 52,000 new cases on a daily basis over the past week. Approximately, 18 per cent of the total cases were reported in the first week of August, according to official data.

Similarly, it reported 6,000 (or 14.13 per cent of total) of total deaths in the last seven days. The current death toll stands at 42,518, while the death rate is at 2.04 per cent. This is one of the lowest death rates in the world. The death rate for the said week was even lower at 1.52 per cent. This implies only 152 out of 10,000 infected persons died due to the infection. Saturday recorded the most (900) number of deaths in 24 hours.

Almost 70 per cent of the total patients have recovered, as of August 8, across the nation. The exact count of recoveries stands at 14.27 lakh. It is interesting to note that around one fourth (23.32 per cent) of these recoveries were reported during the last week itself. The total count of recovered patients is at 3.32 lakh for the week. This is one positive side to look at when the country is suffering badly due to the novel coronavirus. The overall recovery rate stands at 67.98 per cent, as on Saturday.

The increased rate of testing has also resulted in a sharp rise in the number of cases across the states. The country conducted 40.28 lakh cases in the said week and detected around four lakh new cases. The test positivity rate (TPR) for the week turned out to be 9.75 per cent which is comparatively higher than the overall 8.93 per cent since the beginning.

The test positivity rate is the number of positive cases found out per hundred samples. The increasing TPR should be a cause of concern as it shows signs of a further spike in infections.

Maharashtra (4.79 lakh cases) and Tamil Nadu (2.79 lakh cases) remain the worst-hit states followed by Andhra Pradesh (1.96 lakh cases), Karnataka (1.58 lakh cases) and Delhi (1.41 lakh cases). Gujarat still has the highest death rate of 3.81 per cent while Delhi has the highest (89.82 per cent) recovery rate.