Mint Covid Tracker: New infections and deaths rising fast in Gujarat and West Bengal
3 min read . Updated: 24 Apr 2020, 09:52 AM IST
PremiumMumbai, Pune, Ahmedabad, Thane, and Surat account for half of all new cases reported over the past two days
The number of reported covid-19 cases in India rose by 14 percent over the past two days to 21,700, data from the ministry of health and family welfare (MoHFW) published last evening showed. This is a slower rate of increase as compared to the previous 48 hours, when the reported case count rose 18 percent to 18,985.
So far this week, the number of cases has gone up by 35 percent (between Sunday evening and Thursday evening). This is in line with the increase in the previous four days.
Although India’s covid-19 trajectory has tapered slightly over the past couple of weeks, it continues to be steeper compared to Asian peers such as Japan, Indonesia, and Pakistan.
Singapore, which had a much flatter curve than most other countries has seen a renewed wave of new infections that has steepened its curve. Compared to Western nations where the virus has claimed more lives, the trajectories of most Asian countries including India have been flatter so far.
India’s case count is now roughly double what it was ten days ago. This is a much slower rate compared to early-April, when cases were doubling every four days. Deaths have also seen slower rise. India’s death toll from covid-19 as of last evening was 686, roughly double what it was ten days ago. Still, at the current rate of compounded growth, the number of cases could rise to 30,000 in the next four days.
At 4,594, Maharashtra leads in terms of the number of active cases of covid-19, according to the health ministry update on Thursday evening. Active cases exclude deaths and recoveries from the list of confirmed cases.
Gujarat has the second most number of active cases (2,125), followed by Rajasthan (1,633). At 1,476 active cases, Delhi has the fourth-highest number of active cases, closely followed by Madhya Pradesh (1,466). The top five states together account for 68 percent of the active cases nationally, and the top ten states account for 92 percent of all cases.
Nationally, the active case count was 16,689 as of yesterday evening. These are early days yet and the state-wise distribution could change in the coming days. Testing across states has been uneven and as testing gets ramped up, more cases could come to light in states where reported cases have been low so far.
_1587701695171.png "Source: Ministry of Health and Family Welfare")
Over the past seven days, Gujarat, West Bengal, and Maharashtra have seen the highest spike in cases among top ten states with most cases. These three states account for 62 percent of all the new active cases in this period. Over the same period, fatalities have gone up the most in Rajasthan, Gujarat, and West Bengal. These three states account for 37 percent of all covid-related deaths over the past seven days.
So far, 439 districts have confirmed cases in the country. Over the past two days, Mumbai, Pune, Ahmedabad, Thane, and Surat districts have seen the biggest spike in confirmed cases nationally. These five districts account for 50 percent of new cases over this period, data compiled by howindialives.com shows.
_1587701740262.png "Source: National Disaster Management Authority, state health ministries, national/regional publications")
_1587701804404.png "Source: NDMA, state health ministries and rational/regional publications")
Among districts, Mumbai (4,179 cases) has reported the most number of cases nationally, followed by Ahmedabad (1,652) in Gujarat, Pune (1,050) in Maharashtra, Indore (945) in Madhya Pradesh and Jaipur (721) in Rajasthan. These top five districts now account for 37 percent of confirmed cases in the country.
Thane (595) in Maharashtra, New Delhi (528), Hyderabad (479), Surat (415) in Gujarat and Chennai (405) are the other high-burden districts which figure in the list of top ten districts. The top ten districts account for 48 percent of the confirmed cases nationally.
Most of India’s hotspots are urban affluent districts, with richer states hit harder so far.
More than 2.7 million people have now been detected as covid-19 patients globally even as several parts of the world, including India, continue to be under lockdown to contain the pandemic.
