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Andhra Pradesh, which is in a midst of a big surge, reported almost 8,000 new cases of novel Coronavirus on Thursday, pushing India within touching distance of 50,000-cases-a-day mark.
A total of 49,310 new cases were added throughout the country on Thursday, with Odisha, which has been contributing over 1,000 cases for the last two days, yet to report its daily numbers. For the last few days now, India has been more Coronavirus patients than any other country in the world except the United States. Brazil’s daily numbers have fallen in the last week, while India has risen from the level of about 35,000 to almost 50,000 now.
But Andhra Pradesh was not alone in pushing India to the 50,000-mark on Thursday. Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, and Karnataka also contributed in good measure. In the last one week, Maharashtra seems to have found a new level for its daily numbers. It has been consistently reporting figures above 8,000, thanks mainly to the surge in Pune, which right now is detecting over 3,000 cases every day, more than any other city in the country. On Thursday, the state had close to 10,000 new cases.
For the last two days, even Tamil Nadu seems to be searching for a new level. For more than a week, the state reported almost identical number of new cases, around the 4,500-mark. But it showed a jump on Wednesday with more than 5,800 new infections, and on Thursday, this went even further to 6,400.
These numbers have suddenly made Karnataka look much better. Karnataka was the fastest growing state till about a week ago, before Andhra Pradesh took over. It had surged past many states to become the state with the fourth-largest caseload. Even on Thursday, Karnataka added 5,000 cases, which till two days back, could have been the highest outside if Maharashtra. But because of the surge seen in Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka’s numbers look much more modest.
Also read | Did Andhra squander early advantages?
With Andhra Pradesh, three districts — East Godavari, Guntur, and Anantpur –detected more than 1,000 cases each on Thursday. East Godavari, in fact, now has over 10,000 people who have been infected with the virus.
The total number of infections in Andhra Pradesh reached 72,700 on Thursday, and at this rate, the state looks set to overtake Karnataka’s current 81,000-figure over the weekend. The infection numbers in Andhra Pradesh are currently growing at 9.7 per cent per day (7-day compounded daily growth rate), while Karnataka’s growth rate has come down to 6.68 per cent.
India’s own growth rate has also begun to steadily climb up after a week of big numbers. After touching a log of 3.35 per cent on July 12, the growth rate has climbed up to 3.62 per cent now . The doubling time of total cases has fallen below 20 days for the first time this month.
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Top ten states with maximum caseload
| STATE | TOTAL POSITIVE | NEW CASES | TOTAL RECOVERIES | DEATHS
|
| Maharashtra | 347,502 | 9,895 | 194,253 | 12,854 |
| Tamil Nadu | 192,964 | 6,472 | 136,793 | 3,232 |
| Delhi | 127,364 | 1,041 | 109,065 | 3,745 |
| Karnataka | 80,863 | 5,030 | 29,310 | 1,622 |
| Andhra Pradesh | 72,711 | 7,998 | 37,555 | 884 |
| Uttar Pradesh | 58,104 | 2,516 | 35,803 | 1,298 |
| Gujarat | 52,563 | 1,078 | 37,958 | 2,257 |
| West Bengal | 51,757 | 2,436 | 31,656 | 1,255 |
| Telangana | 50,826 | 1,567 | 39,327 | 447 |
| Rajasthan | 33,098 | 886 | 23,700 | 594 |
