India Covid-19 numbers explained, Sept 19: Odisha cases quietly on the rise

Within Odisha, it is Khurda district that been reporting the maximum number of cases since the start of this month, between 600 and 800 cases every day. Khurda now has more than 30,000 confirmed infections.

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Ganjam, which had been the biggest hotspot till a few weeks ago, has seen a remarkable turnaround. It has added fewer than 1,500 cases in September, and its growth rate has dropped to 0.3 per cent per day. The district has reported 25 deaths this month, though, at 215, it still has recorded the highest number of deaths in the state.

With very few new cases coming up, Ganjam now has a recovery rate of almost 98 per cent. Only about 200-odd infected people in the district, out of a total of more than 19,000 are currently active.

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Top ten states with maximum caseload:

Chhattisgarh has less than half the caseload of Odisha, but its daily new addition is almost at par with Odisha. Not surprisingly, the state is adding new cases at the fastest rate in the country right now, almost five per cent per day. The state capital Raipur accounts for almost the third of all cases reported from the state, while Durg, Rajnandgaon and Bilaspur districts happen to be the other badly affected areas. On Friday, Chhattisgarh reported more than 3,800 new cases, which was its highest so far.

Punjab has almost doubled its caseload in the last three weeks, from about 45,000 to over 92,000 now. It has been adding more than 2,500 new cases for the last one week. But what has been more worrying about Punjab is its very high mortality rate. In fact, the state’s case fatality ratio, or the number of deaths out of those who have been detected positive for the disease, is currently highest in the country, even more than Maharashtra. Punjab has recorded over 2,700 coronavirus-related deaths till now. It has been reporting between 60 and 80 deaths every day for the last two weeks.

Daily rise in Covid-19 cases in India.

On Friday, more than 93,000 new cases were detected from across the country, taking the total number of confirmed infections till now to over 53.08 lakh. There was a sharp dip in the number of tests carried out on Friday. Only about 8.8 lakh samples were tested, against a normal of about 11 to 12 lakh every day. That is likely to result in a drop in new cases being reported on Saturday. The weekends also usually see the testing numbers dip. So, for the next couple of days, there is unlikely to be any big jump in the new detections that are reported every day.

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