On Friday, more than 9,500 new cases were detected throughout the country.
India Coronavirus (Covid-19) Cases: It might appear a little counter-intuitive. The number of new cases of novel Coronavirus in the country is going up almost every day. Between May 15 and May 20, about 4,000 to 5,000 cases were being discovered every day. For the last three days, between 9,000 and 10,000 new cases are being detected. And yet, the national growth rate has slowed down by more than half a percentage point during this time.
Again, novel Coronavirus cases in more than 25 states and union territories have been growing at a rate which is more than the national growth rate, and yet the national growth rate has been showing a declining trend for the last two weeks.
Neither of these is very difficult to explain, though. In the first case, even though the new cases are increasing every day, they are still lower than what is required to maintain the same growth rate. And, in the second case the 25 states and union territories that are growing faster than the national growth rate have relatively smaller caseloads. The ones that contribute the maximum to the national caseload, Maharashtra, Gujarat and Rajasthan, have been growing at a considerably slower pace, and have been able to negate the effect of higher growth rates in other states.
Top ten states with maximum caseload
| STATE | TOTAL POSITIVE | NEW CASES | TOTAL RECOVERIES | DEATHS |
| Maharashtra | 80,229 | 2,436 | 35,156 | 2,849 |
| Tamil Nadu | 28,694 | 1,438 | 15,762 | 232 |
| Delhi | 26,334 | 1,330 | 10,315 | 708 |
| Gujarat | 19,119 | 510 | 13,011 | 1190 |
| Rajasthan | 9,971 | 222 | 7,248 | 218 |
| Uttar Pradesh | 9,733 | 496 | 5,648 | 257 |
| Madhya Pradesh | 8,996 | 234 | 5,878 | 384 |
| West Bengal | 7,303 | 427 | 2,912 | 366 |
| Karnataka | 4,835 | 515 | 1,688 | 59 |
| Bihar | 4,598 | 146 | 2,233 | 29 |
So, an increase in the new cases being detected every day, and a slowdown in the growth rate are happening together right now. On Friday, for example, more than 9,500 new cases were detected throughout the country. It was slightly less than the number on Thursday, 10,024, and the seven-day compounded daily growth rate also fell from 4.61 per cent to 4.52 per cent.
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The slowdown in growth in also borne by the fact that the transmission rate has been going down consistently over the last two months. Transmission rate is the average number of people who get infected by an already infected person. It is better known as the reproduction number, or simply R, and is a very good measure of how fast an epidemic is spreading in a population. According to the calculations made by Dr Sitabhra Sinha and his colleagues at the Institute of Mathematical Sciences in Chennai, the latest reproduction number for the country as a whole is 1.22, an all-time low during the current pandemic. It means that every group of 100 infected persons is, on an average, passing on the virus to another 122 people. Just before the first phase of lockdown began, on March 24, this number was 1.83, which meant 183 new people were being infected, on an average, by every 100 infected people. Lower is the R-number, slower is the spread of the epidemic. However, only after it falls below 1 does the decline of the epidemic actually begins.
Visitors at Sukhna Lake in Chandigarh on Friday. (Express Photo: Kamleshwar Singh)
The reduction in reproduction number could directly be attributed to the lockdown measures and restrictions on the movement of people. However, it has continued to decline even after the restrictions have been eased significantly, and here again, the slowdown in Maharashtra has a role to play. Maharashtra accounts for more than 35 per cent of India’s total caseload, and therefore, exercises disproportionate influence on the national curve.
Between May 16 and May 26, Sitabhra and his colleagues had estimated the reproduction number to be 1.23, and based on that, had predicted the total number of active cases in the country to reach 1.35 lakh by May 30 (Active cases are patients who have not yet recovered from the disease). It was actually much lower than that, just about 90,000, because the slowdown in Maharashtra had been dragging the reproduction number even further.
Sinha estimates that this 1.35 lakh number would now be reached only on June 9, the nine day delay being a direct result of the continuing slowdown. As on Thursday, June 4, the number of active cases was 1.14 lakh, and increasing by about 4,000 to 5,000 every day.
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https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMiYmh0dHBzOi8vaW5kaWFuZXhwcmVzcy5jb20vYXJ0aWNsZS9leHBsYWluZWQvY29yb25hdmlydXMtbnVtYmVycy1leHBsYWluZWQtaW5kaWEtY2FzZXMtZ3Jvd3RoLXJhdGUv0gFnaHR0cHM6Ly9pbmRpYW5leHByZXNzLmNvbS9hcnRpY2xlL2V4cGxhaW5lZC9jb3JvbmF2aXJ1cy1udW1iZXJzLWV4cGxhaW5lZC1pbmRpYS1jYXNlcy1ncm93dGgtcmF0ZS9saXRlLw?oc=5
2020-06-06 13:56:42Z
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