Mint Covid Tracker: Karnataka’s Bellary reports 40% rise in case tally in 2 days
Visakhapatnam (24%) saw the second biggest spike in coronavirus infections during the period, followed by Patna (20%)
Bellary district of Karnataka has reported the biggest surge in coronavirus cases in India over the last two days, data compiled by howindialives.com on Monday evening showed. The state has been one of the major hotspots of the virus spread in the country for over a month. The number of confirmed cases rose 40% in Bellary in two days to reach 4,930. Bengaluru, the state capital, has nearly 47,000 cases.
Overall, India has 496,988 active cases, or the number of patients still under treatment, as of Tuesday morning and 33,425 deaths have been attributed to the infection, latest data from the health ministry data showed. Active cases rose 26% in the last seven days, in line with the week-ago period (14 July to 21 July). The seven-day spike in deaths is 19%, higher than 18% in the preceding week. The seven-day rolling averages have been considered for these calculations to minimize the effect of volatile and delayed reporting.
Since early June, 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 sixth highest in the world. Among high-fatality countries (more than 10,000 deaths), India has recorded the second 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. To curb renewed spread, some states are enforcing localized lockdowns again.
Among states, Maharashtra (13,883), Delhi (3,853), Tamil Nadu (3,571), Gujarat (2,348), Karnataka (1,953) have reported the most deaths. These states together account for 77% of all covid-related deaths in India so far. However, only two of them, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, have seen a bigger spike than the national average in the last seven days.
Of the 12 states with the most active cases, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu have reported the biggest percentage jumps in deaths. In terms of active cases, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Kerala led the surge 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, Tamil Nadu’s toll jumped by nearly 600 within a day last week after the state government attributed 444 earlier deaths to covid-19.
Among states with more than 10,000 cases so far, Tamil Nadu and Kerala have conducted the most tests per million population per day in the last two weeks, and West Bengal and Bihar the fewest, data collected by The Hindu showed.
Among the 15 districts with the highest number of new cases in the last 48 hours, the biggest percentage spikes were reported by Bellary (40%) in Karnataka, Visakhapatnam (24%) in Andhra Pradesh, and Patna (20%) in Bihar. In absolute numbers, Pune, Bengaluru and Thane reported the biggest increase in cases during this period, data compiled by howindialives.com showed.
So far, at least 538 out of over 700 districts in India have had at least one covid-related death. Mumbai (6,132 deaths) has reported the most, followed by Thane (2,374), Chennai (2,032), Pune (1,866) and Ahmedabad (1,582). Bengaluru and Kolkata are the other districts with more than 600 deaths. This list does not include Delhi, where the government does not provide district-wise data. State-level data shows Delhi (3,853 deaths) has the second-worst toll after Mumbai.
The number of coronavirus infections is likely to keep increasing in the coming days, with India now consistently testing over 400,000 samples per day. According to the Indian Council for Medical Research, over 17.3 million samples have been tested as of Monday, compared to 14.4 million samples a week ago.
India has reported 1,483,156 coronavirus cases in all since the beginning of the outbreak in late January. However, the actual number of infected people could be much larger. Many infections go unreported due to lack of symptoms or variations in testing and reporting practices. A seroprevalence survey in Delhi earlier this month found antibodies in the samples of 23% of the participants, which could mean they had been infected by the virus already. A set of 60,000 antibody tests conducted all over India by private diagnostic laboratory Thyrocare found antibodies in 15% of them.
This means the actual fatality rate due to coronavirus could be much lower than is believed, in India as well as other countries. As of Tuesday, 2.3% of the infected patients have died, based on government data. The global average is 4%.
At the current pace, India's count of total coronavirus cases is likely to cross 2 million cases in nine days' time. Out of all reported cases so far, 64%, or 952,742, had been discharged by Tuesday, as compared to 59% a month ago.
Meanwhile, the global coronavirus case count has crossed 16.4 million, including over 653,000 deaths and 9.5 million recoveries (58%).
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Business NewsNewsIndiaMint Covid Tracker: Karnataka’s Bellary reports 40% rise in case tally in 2 days
First Published:28 Jul 2020, 11:36 AM IST
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