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Business News/ News / India/  Mint Covid Tracker: India’s coronavirus curve steeper than Singapore, Japan, Pakistan but flatter than US
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Mint Covid Tracker: India’s coronavirus curve steeper than Singapore, Japan, Pakistan but flatter than US

Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Telangana have witnessed the biggest surge in coronavirus cases over the past two days

Workers wearing protective suits disinfect the exterior of a passenger train after it was converted into an isolation facility amid concerns about the spread of coronavirus disease (COVID-19), on the outskirts of Kolkata (REUTERS)Premium
Workers wearing protective suits disinfect the exterior of a passenger train after it was converted into an isolation facility amid concerns about the spread of coronavirus disease (COVID-19), on the outskirts of Kolkata (REUTERS)

The number of reported covid-19 cases in India has jumped 39 percent over the past two days to 4281, data from the ministry of health and family welfare (MoHFW) published last evening showed. This is a slower increase compared to the previous 48 hours, when the reported case count rose 48 percent to 3072.

Over the past week, India’s trajectory has steepened. India’s curve is still flatter than that of the US, which has emerged as the new global epicentre of covid-19. Yet, it is steeper than Asian peers such as Singapore and Japan. Both countries had managed to flatten their trajectories in the early days through focused screening and testing. But a second wave of infections suggests that their efforts might not have been enough still.

Singapore has already announced a month-long lockdown and Japan may also be considering one now.

India is already in the 14th day of a 21-day lockdown and the case count continues to mount. India’s case count is now roughly double what it was four days ago. At this trajectory, the number of cases could shoot up to 10,000 over the next five days. If the same trajectory continues beyond that period, India’s hospitals could get overwhelmed in the next few months.

It is likely that cases will continue to rise as testing expands, even if the lockdown has lowered the rate of transmission of the virus. The full impact of the lockdown can be gauged only after a few weeks. If the lockdown phase is used effectively to identify and isolate affected patients, this could help India flatten the curve in the coming weeks. If not, cases could spike once the lockdown ends.

At 647, Maharashtra leads in terms of the number of active cases of covid-19, according to the health ministry update on Monday evening. Active cases exclude deaths and recoveries from the list of confirmed cases. With two major hospitals in Maharashtra’s capital city of Mumbai sealed because of a large number of confirmed cases among health workers, it is likely that the case count for the city and the state will mount over the coming days.

Tamil Nadu has the second most number of active cases (558), closely followed by Delhi (497). At 281 active cases, Uttar Pradesh has the fourth-highest number of active cases, followed closely by Telangana (280). The top five states together account for 59 percent of the active cases nationally. Nationally, the active case count was 3851, as of yesterday evening. Kerala, which was in the top five group so far is no longer in this category, and has 257 active cases currently.

These are early days yet and the state-wise distribution could change rapidly. Across the country, the extent of testing done by states and the number of cases that have been identified appear to be linked. This suggests that as other states ramp up testing, more cases could get reported from those states as well.

Source: MoHFW
View Full Image
Source: MoHFW
Source: State government portals
View Full Image
Source: State government portals


A study by public health researchers published on Monday suggested that Kerala, Goa, Rajasthan, Delhi, and Chandigarh have been more proactive in testing compared to other states. States such as Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Punjab, West Bengal, and Gujarat which have low testing rates and high fatality rates may have missed several cases in their early stages because of low testing, the study published by the British Medical Journal blog suggests.

So far, four states have reported covid-19 cases in the north-east: Manipur, Mizoram, Assam and Arunachal Pradesh. Other north-eastern states have not reported any case so far.

Over the past two days, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu have seen the biggest spikes in active cases. These two states accounted for 35 percent of the rise in active cases nationally over this period. Telangana saw the third highest spike in this period.

Source: MoHFW
View Full Image
Source: MoHFW

The number of active cases rose from 424 to 647 in Maharashtra, from 403 to 558 in Tamil Nadu, and from 151 to 280 in Telangana over the past two days.

So far, the provisional district wise details are available for 4,067 confirmed cases nationally. In this list, Mumbai (298 cases) has reported the most number of cases nationally, and also leads in the state of Maharashtra. Chennai (81 cases) tops the list of most confirmed cases in Tamil Nadu. Gautam Buddh Nagar district (55 cases) has reported the most number of cases in Uttar Pradesh. In Telangana, it is the capital city of Hyderabad (113 cases) that has reported the most number of cases.


More than 1.3 million people have now been detected as covid-19 patients globally even as several parts of the world, including India, have taken severe lockdown measures in a bid to contain the spread of the novel coronavirus that causes covid-19.

So far, covid-19 has claimed 74,774 deaths worldwide, of which Italy has accounted for the most deaths (16,523), followed by Spain (13,341). These countries have overtaken China --- where the virus originated --- in the number of deaths. China, which has claimed 3,335 covid-19 deaths so far, has been able to slow the spread of the disease over the past month. But the Chinese official covid-19 toll has increasingly faced questions from within and outside China.

Europe followed China in becoming the epicentre of the pandemic but has seen a slowdown in new cases over the past few days. The US has now turned into the epicentre of the pandemic, with 3,68,079 confirmed cases and 10,923 deaths.

In India, there were 111 deaths till yesterday evening, double what it was four days ago. Even though India’s fatality rate remains low at the moment, India’s testing rate too remains low. Testing criteria in India were stringent so far and are only gradually being relaxed even as new labs have begun testing.

Given the limited testing so far, it is too early to say whether India’s current trajectory will sustain, rise, or flatten in the coming days.


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Published: 07 Apr 2020, 10:12 AM IST
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