Mint Covid Tracker: WB fatality rate worst, infections in Thane rising fast
3 min read . Updated: 15 May 2020, 12:28 PM IST
PremiumIndia’s total coronavirus cases crossed 80,000, and look set to rise over 100,000 by Tuesday
The number of reported coronavirus cases in India rose nearly 10.5 percent over the past two days to 81,970, data from the morning update of the ministry of health and family welfare (MoHFW) showed. This is roughly in line with the rate of increase in the previous 48 hours, when the reported case count rose to 74,281 on Wednesday.
So far this week, the number of cases has gone up by 22 percent (between Monday morning and Friday morning). This is a slower rate of increase compared to the previous four days, when confirmed cases had risen by 27 percent.
After tapering last month, India’s coronavirus trajectory has picked up this month, with new infections rising faster than several Asian peers and deaths rising faster than in most other badly-hit countries.
India’s case count has now roughly doubled in the last twelve days. This is a much slower rate compared to early-April, when cases were doubling every four days. Deaths have also seen slower rise compared to the trend in early-April but have picked up pace over the past couple of weeks. India’s death toll from covid-19 as of Friday morning was 2,649, roughly double what it was twelve days ago.
At the rate of compounded daily growth in this twelve-day period, the number of cases could cross 100,000 by next Tuesday, two days after the current phase of the lockdown ends. The continuing rise in cases poses a severe challenge for India’s strained medical capacity and overburdened health system.
At 20,466, Maharashtra leads in terms of the number of active cases, according to the health ministry update this morning. Active cases exclude deaths and recoveries from the list of confirmed cases.
Next on the list is Tamil Nadu with 7,368 active cases, followed by Delhi, with 5,310 patients still under treatment. Gujarat is fourth on the list with 5,252 active cases and Madhya Pradesh fifth with 2,018. The top five states together account for 79 percent of the active cases nationally, and the top ten states account for 93 percent of all cases. Nationally, the active case count was 51,401 as of Friday morning.
Over the past seven days, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, and West Bengal have seen the highest spike in cases among the top ten states with most cases. These three states account for 77 percent of all the new active cases in this period. Over the same period, fatalities have surged the most in Tamil Nadu, Delhi, and Maharashtra. These three states account for 53 percent of all covid-related deaths over the past seven days. Uttar Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh are the only two states in the top ten where the active case count has reduced in this period. Active cases have risen much slower in Gujarat and Rajasthan compared to previous weeks.
Among top ten states with most active cases, the case fatality rates are the highest in West Bengal (9%), Gujarat (6.1%), and Madhya Pradesh (5.4%). India’s case fatality rate continues to hover around 3.2%. Among all states, the case fatality rates are lowest in Odisha (0.5%), Kerala (0.7%), and Tamil Nadu (0.7%).
Over the past two days, Mumbai, Chennai, Thane, Ahmedabad and Pune districts have seen the biggest spike in confirmed cases nationally. These five districts account for 59 percent of new cases over this period, data compiled by howindialives.com last evening shows. Other districts that have seen a sharp spike over the past two days are Indore, Aurangabad (Maharashtra), and Kolkata.
So far, 551 districts have confirmed cases in the country. Mumbai (16,690 cases) has reported the most number of cases nationally among all districts, followed by Ahmedabad (6,910) in Gujarat. Chennai (5,631) in Tamil Nadu, Pune (3,454) in Maharashtra, and Thane (3,287) in Maharashtra are the other leading districts. These top five districts now account for 49 percent of confirmed cases in the country.
Indore (2,238) in Madhya Pradesh, Jaipur (1,348) in Rajasthan, Kolkata (1,184) in West Bengal, Surat (983) in Gujarat, and Jodhpur (980) in Rajasthan are the other high-burden districts which figure in the list of top ten districts. The top ten districts account for 58 percent of all the confirmed cases nationally. District-wise data for Delhi are unavailable and hence not part of this list.
Most of India’s hotspots so far have been urban affluent districts, with richer states hit harder than the rest (https://www.livemint.com/news/india/mapped-the-spread-of-coronavirus-across-india-s-districts-11587179250870.html).
Meanwhile, the global coronavirus case count has crossed 4.4 million even as some badly hit countries begin to relax lockdown measures after over a month.
