On Sunday, India crossed another grim milestone of 4 lakh COVID-19 cases, with the latest biggest single-day spike of 15,413 cases, amid renewed concerns over the rapid rise in new infections. The spike in cases has been marked by new peaks in daily numbers (over 12,500) for four consecutive days to take the country's tally to 4,10,461 while the death toll rose to 13,254 with 306 new fatalities.
What do numbers tell us about the speed with which cases are rising in India? In the past eight days, a total of 1 lakh cases were added in the country. In comparison, India took 64 days to cross the first 1 lakh mark from 100 COVID-19 cases, another fortnight to reach 2 lakh cases, and in another ten days went past the 3 lakh mark.
Which states are accounting for the rapid spike in cases? The country witnessed a surge of 2,19,926 coronavirus infections from June 1 till 21 with Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Delhi, Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh being the top five states making up for the sharp rise. Tamil Nadu (2,532), Kerala (133) and Odisha (304) were among the states which reported a record single-day spike of fresh cases on Sunday. The first case in India was recorded in Kerala on January 30.
On the brighter side, there has been a steady improvement in the recovery rate with around 55.48 per cent of the COVID-19 patients being declared virus free. The number of recoveries stood at 2,27,755 while there were 1,69,451 active cases.
What do experts say? Harvard Global Health Institute Director Dr Ashish Jha has expressed concern over how quickly the new coronavirus cases are rising in India, and said when populous states like Bihar and Uttar Pradesh get hit hard, the country could see a "large increase in virus infections and deaths". Jha referred to the ‘Youyang Gu COVID-19’ model, which forecasts infections and deaths from the virus around the world, for an estimate of a probable COVID-19 death toll in India. The Gu model suggests that there could be 1,36,056 projected total deaths and 2,73,33,589 total infected people in India by October 1.
"Right now I'm concerned by how quickly the number of new cases are rising. India's density may be contributing to this and we've seen high rates of spread in some of the larger metro areas like Mumbai, Delhi and also Chennai," Jha told PTI in an email interview. "But what concerns me most is major population areas—such as in Bihar and UP—that have not yet gotten hit very hard. When they do get hit we will likely see a large increase in the number of cases and deaths, which we need to prepare for," he said.
"Given the lag between infection, onset of symptoms and death, I expect numbers to continue to rise in the coming weeks and months," he said, as he stressed that the trajectory of cases is very concerning in India.
How much are we testing now? According to the health ministry, the number of samples being tested everyday continues to grow. In the last 24 hours, 1,90,730 samples were tested, while the total number analysed so far is 68,07,226, it said in a statement.
Which states account for the most number of cases? Maharashtra has reported the maximum number of cases at 1,28,205, followed by Tamil Nadu at 56,845, Delhi at 56,746, Gujarat at 26,680, Uttar Pradesh at 16,594, Rajasthan at 14,536 and West Bengal at 13,531, according to the health ministry's data. The other states with over 10,000 cases were Madhya Pradesh(11,724) and Haryana(10,223).
Which states account most for the death toll? Of the total 13,254 deaths, Maharashtra accounted for the highest 5,984, followed by Delhi (2,112), Gujarat (1,638), Tamil Nadu (704), West Bengal (540), Madhya Pradesh (501), Uttar Pradesh (507), Rajasthan (337) and Telangana (203).
-Inputs from PTI
