BackMint Covid Tracker: At current pace, India’s coronavirus tally could hit 1 million in seven days
Assam is now reporting the second biggest growth rate in active cases as well as deaths among major states, after Karnataka
PremiumIndia’s total coronavirus case tally is set to hit the 1 million mark by next Friday if it continues to rise at the same pace as since mid-June, a Mint analysis based on the latest health ministry data showed. During this period, cases have been growing at an average daily growth rate of 3.5%, taking the total number close to 800,000 now.
Overall, India has 276,685 active cases—or patients still under treatment—as of Friday morning, while 21,604 deaths have been attributed to the infection, latest health ministry data showed. Active cases rose 20% in the last seven days, in line with the week-ago period (26 June to 3 July). The seven-day spike in deaths is 19%, compared to 20% in the preceding week. The seven-day rolling averages have been considered for these calculations since they minimize the effect of volatile and delayed reporting.
Over the past few weeks, new infections and deaths have been rising faster in India than in most other badly-hit countries. The country has the third highest number of active cases, after the United States and Brazil. The toll is the eighth highest in the world. Among high-fatality countries (more than 5,000 deaths), India has recorded the biggest spike in deaths as well as active cases over the past week.
With cases rising, India’s health facilities and workforce continue to be under severe strain. The risk of further spread is higher now as the economy has started to reopen and most public movement is allowed.
Among states, Maharashtra (9,667), Delhi (3,258), Gujarat (2,008), Tamil Nadu (1,765) and Uttar Pradesh (862) have reported the most deaths. These states together account for 81% of all covid-related deaths in India so far. However, only one of them, Tamil Nadu, has seen a bigger spike than the national average in the last seven days.
Of the 10 states with the most active cases, Karnataka, Assam and Tamil Nadu have reported the biggest percentage jumps in deaths. Karnataka, Assam and Andhra Pradesh lead the surge in terms of active cases in this period, based on the seven-day rolling averages.
It is worth noting that data quality on cases and deaths vary across countries and regions because of factors such as differences in testing standards, and in protocols being followed for recording covid-related deaths. For example, the rise in cases in Telangana late last month may simply reflect a reporting effect—it ramped up testing after it was criticised for not testing enough.
However, Telangana remains one of the states with the fewest tests per million population. Among states with more than 10,000 cases so far, Delhi and Andhra Pradesh have conducted the most tests per million population as per the latest data, and Telangana and Bihar the least, data collected by The Hindu showed.
Among the 15 districts with the highest number of confirmed cases, the biggest percentage spike in the last two days has been reported by Chittoor in Andhra Pradesh (33%), Bengaluru in Karnataka (22%) and Kamrup Metropolitan Area in Assam (18%). Thane, Pune and Mumbai—all in Maharashtra—reported the biggest spikes in absolute numbers of cases during this period, data compiled by howindialives.com last evening shows.
So far, at least 462 out of over 700 districts in India have had at least one covid-related death. Mumbai (5,132 deaths) has reported the most, followed by Ahmedabad (1,506) in Gujarat, Thane (1,471) in Maharashtra, Chennai (1,170) in Tamil Nadu, and Pune (1,017) in Maharashtra. Kolkata in West Bengal and Solapur, Jalgaon, Aurangabad in Maharashtra are the other districts with more than 300 deaths. This list does not include Delhi, where the government does not provide district-wise data. State-level data shows Delhi (3,258 deaths) has the second-worst toll after Mumbai.
_1594359572129.png "Source: Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, state health ministries, national/regional publications")
_1594359589259.png "Source: NDMA, state health ministries, national/regional publications")
The number of coronavirus infections is likely to keep increasing in the coming days, with India testing more samples per day than earlier in the outbreak. According to the Indian Council for Medical Research, more than 11 million samples have been tested as of Wednesday, compared to 9.3 million samples a week ago.
India has reported 793,802 coronavirus cases in all since the beginning of the outbreak in late January. Out of all cases confirmed so far in India, 62%, or 495,112, had been discharged by Friday, as compared to 49% a month ago. India’s case fatality rate—2.7 deaths per 100 infections—is lower than the global average of 4.5% at the moment.
Meanwhile, the global coronavirus case count has crossed 12.2 million, with close to 555,000 deaths, and more than 6.7 million recoveries (55%).
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