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India Coronavirus Cases: The reason why Delhi is offering so much hope is that it has been seeing a continuous decline in the number of active cases of novel Coronavirus infection for more than a month now. This happens when more number of people are recovering from the disease every day than are falling sick.
From a high of about 28,000 active cases at the end of June, the number has declined to just over 10,000. The decline has been consistent, and held on long enough to raise hopes that the disease is close to being contained. Of course, people still need to take precautions and follow the rules of physical distancing and wearing masks, and authorities still need to continue their efforts to screen, identify and isolate infected people. Otherwise, these gains can easily be frittered away.
It is still very early days, but even Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu have begun to show signs of a stabilisation in their active cases (see charts below). On four days of the last one week, including the first two days of this month, the number of recoveries in Maharashtra has exceeded new detections of infections.
And in Tamil Nadu, almost for the entire last week, the number of new detections has been only slightly more than those recovering every day, which has resulted in the plateauing of the growth of active cases during this period.
But these trends are only a few days old, and can change anytime. In the case of Tamil Nadu at least, such a dip in active cases has been observed in an earlier period as well. But for Maharashtra, this is a relatively new trend.
Active cases is sometimes considered a better metric to track, because only these patients can transmit the virus further. Also, only these would require any kind of medical attention, so a reduction in active cases also means lessening of the burden on hospitals and healthcare professionals.
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No other major state, apart from Delhi, Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra is showing any signs of reduction in active cases right now. In fact, the active cases in Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Bihar, Kerala, West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, all fast growing states, have been rising rapidly in the last one month (see charts below).
Even states like Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh or Rajasthan, which have had very slow growth rates, are seeing a consistent rise in the number of active cases. That is because in these states, the number of people detected to be infected every day is still significantly higher than those recovering from the disease, even though both these numbers are comparatively lesser than those in the high-growth states.
Sunday saw a marginal decline in the number of new cases detected across the country. A little less than 53,000 new infections were discovered, compared to about 55,000 on Saturday, and more than 57,000 a day earlier. That took the total number of people who have so far been infected to over 18 lakh.
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| STATE | TOTAL POSITIVE | NEW CASES | TOTAL RECOVERIES | DEATHS
|
| Maharashtra | 441,228 | 9,509 | 276,809 | 15,576 |
| Tamil Nadu | 257,613 | 5,875 | 196,483 | 4,132 |
| Andhra Pradesh | 158,764 | 8,555 | 82,886 | 1,474 |
| Delhi | 137,677 | 961 | 123,317 | 4,004 |
| Karnataka | 134,819 | 5,532 | 57,725 | 2,504 |
| Uttar Pradesh | 92,921 | 3,973 | 53,357 | 1,730 |
| West Bengal | 75,516 | 2,739 | 52,730 | 1,678 |
| Telangana | 67,660 | 983 | 48,609 | 551 |
| Gujarat | 63,683 | 1,109 | 46,587 | 2,487 |
| Bihar | 57,270 | 2,762 | 36,637 | 322 |
It means India is slowly closing the gap on Brazil, which has the second highest number of infected people in the world after the United States. Brazil currently has 26.62 lakh people who have been infected with the virus at some point. For a few days last week, Brazil was adding less than 30,000 new cases every day, allowing India, which has been reporting more than 50,000 every day, to close the gap. However, for the last three days, the daily detections in Brazil have shot up again, and gone above 50,000. In the United States, more than 45.23 lakh people have been infected.
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There were indications that the Coronavirus epidemic was showing signs of a resurgence in many parts of the world, from Australia, to Japan, to Philippines, to areas in the United States itself.
In India, 11.86 lakh of the over 18 lakh people who have so far been infected, have already recovered from the disease. That is a recovery rate of over 65 per cent. More than 38,000 people have so far succumbed to the disease.
