Coronavirus numbers explained: Why there has been a spike in new cases and recoveries

By late night, Gujarat had reported more cases, and its actual number on Saturday stood at 11,026, almost 500 more than Tamil Nadu.

For the last one week, between 3,500 and 3,800 cases were being reported every day.

In Punjab, 952 positive, but asymptomatic, cases were sent back to their homes, following new guidelines that allow asymptomatic cases to be isolated at home. Close to 850 of these asymptomatic cases are returnees from Nanded. Punjab, like most other states, bunches ‘Recoveries’ and ‘Discharges’ together. So, these 952 have shown as having ‘recovered’ even though they have only been ‘discharged’ from official quarantine centres. After this adjustment, the number of recoveries in Punjab has jumped from 305 to 1257.

Thanks to the high numbers from Gujarat, the country recorded as many as 4,874 new cases on Saturday, a new single-day high. For the last one week, between 3,500 and 3,800 cases were being reported every day. The previous high of 4,370 was recorded on May 10, last Saturday.

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On Saturday, Bihar and Odisha also reported their highest numbers so far. Bihar reported 145 cases to take its total to 1178, while Odisha discovered 91 cases to reach 737. In both the states, a vast majority of new cases are amongst workers returning from other places.

In fact, that is true for several other states as well. In Rajasthan, 384 migrant workers have been found positive in the last five days. In Tamil Nadu, 93 people returning from other states tested positive on Saturday. In Karnataka, 13 of the 36 new cases reported on Saturday were those who were returning from other states.

The people on the move have also been the reason for a minor resurgence being seen in states like Kerala, Himachal Pradesh, Assam and Goa, all of which had either stopped reporting new cases, or were finding them only sporadically.

Maharashtra and Gujarat, however, have been largely untouched by this trend. Migrant workers, or those returning from other states, contribute only a small fraction of the new cases in these states. On Saturday, Maharashtra reported 1,606 new cases. It now has 30,706 confirmed cases, out of which more than 18,000 are in Mumbai alone.