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India Hits 1 Million COVID-19 Cases; How Did We Get Here?

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Coronavirus
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On Friday, 17 July, India crossed the one million mark in its COVID-19 cases, with a total of 1,003,832 cases, 635,757 recoveries and 25,602 deaths. The number of people currently infected (active cases) is 342,473, according to the Health Ministry data.

While it took about four months for the country to register half a million cases, the number doubled in only less than three weeks. The record-breaking rise in daily cases and deaths have been concerning, with some states plateauing while others witnessing an exponential spike. From the very first case on 30 January, how has the country progressed?

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As the graph shows, despite three phases of the national lockdown, India has not yet ‘flattened the curve’, even though individual states have shown improvements.

On 19 May, India had crossed the one lakh mark in coronavirus-related cases, followed by 2 lakh cases on 3 June, 3 lakh on 13 June, 4 lakh on 21 June, 5 lakh on 27 June, 6 lakh on 2 July, 7 lakh on 7 July, 8 lakh on 11 July, 9 lakh on 14 July, and now 10 lakh on 17 July.

The number of days taken to record one lakh new cases has progressively declined, indicating that the outbreak is still spreading rapidly in the country.

Our tests per million also remain one of the lowest among the worst-hit countries in the world, despite India occupying the third position in terms of the number of cases - falling only behind the United States and Brazil.

To put things in perspective, India’s tests per million as of 15 July was 8,991, compared to the US’ 132,993 and Brazil’s 21,507, according to Statista.

The reported number of deaths has crossed 25,000 with a case fatality ratio (percentage of deaths out of total cases) of 2.57% as on 16 July - which is actually a fall from a month ago - 3.6% on 17 June. Our death rate is among the lowest when compared to other hard-hit countries.

But as FIT had earlier reported, this low death rate in India could be attributed to a host of factors, including India's historically abysmal death reporting - only 22% deaths here are medically certified.

Meanwhile, the Indian Council of Medical Research and the Health Ministry continue to maintain that the country has still not entered the stage of ‘community transmission’.

On a more positive note, the recovery rate in India has been increasing, from 50% in mid-June to over 63% currently.

Rajesh Bhushan, OSD, Ministry of Health, said on 9 July, “We are the second-most populous country of the world. Despite a population of 1.3 Bn people, India has been able to manage COVID-19 relatively well. If you look at cases per million population it still remains amongst lowest in the world.”

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State-Wise Burden of COVID-19 Cases

Only two states, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu, now constitute 48% of the country’s total active caseload, according to the ministry data. Just 10 states account for 85% of the total active caseload, Livemint reported.

Maharashtra continues to be the worst-hit state in the country with 284,281 cases on 17 July, followed by Tamil Nadu and Delhi. Karnataka crossed Gujarat becoming the state with the fourth-highest cases on Tuesday.

While some states like Delhi and parts of Maharashtra have been showing improvement, Karnataka has become one of the fastest-growing regions this month in terms of cases as well as deaths. According to an Indian Express analysis. the state has nearly 30,000 new cases with more than 2,000 daily rise in the two weeks of July. Just during the end of June, it was recording only 350 to 450 cases every day. It is now the only state with a doubling of less than 10 days.

This could partly be attributed to increased testing, which has gone up from 12,000-14,000 samples daily to more than 20,000 samples on a single day this week.

Parts of India like Bengaluru (accounting for almost 60 percent of all active cases in Karnataka) and Bihar have also reimposed lockdowns to control the growing numbers.

On the other hand, Delhi has been showing a marked slump in its cases, which have come down from nearly 4,000 on 23 June to only 1,652 cases on 16 July. Dharavi, Asia’s largest slum, has also managed to contain its COVID-19 spread.

Other states in the top 10 are Uttar Pradesh, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal and Rajasthan. Assam, Bihar and Odisha have also been seeing a high growth rate lately.

As the nation unlocks, the only way forward would be to practice physical distancing and to wear masks on an individual level. Governments across the country will have to continue ramping up testing, contact tracing and upgrading their health infrastructures. Dr Shahid Jameel, a virologist and CEO of Wellcome Trust DBT India Alliance says. “There is no getting away from it. We have to start living differently.”

(At The Quint, we are answerable only to our audience. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member. Because the truth is worth it.)

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Topics:  Lockdown   Coronavirus 2019   COVID-19 

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