(TibetanReview.net, Mar13’21) – Four indicators suggest that India’s second Covid-19 wave has started, according to the hindustantimes.com Mar 12. Firstly, the nationwide resurgence of new infections continues. Secondly, cases are rising twice as fast as the national average in several states including Maharashtra (up 509% from the trough after the first wave), Punjab (331%), Haryana (302%), Madhya Pradesh (164%), Delhi (140%), Assam (138%), Gujarat (125%), Rajasthan (111%) and Andhra Pradesh (105%). Thirdly, positivity rate has again started going up (from 1.6% for the week ending Feb 14 to 2.6% in the past week). And fourthly, the trajectory of active case has been rising for 20 days, with the seven-day average of change in active cases (unlike total caseload, active cases can fall) being positive for the last 20 days, or since Feb 17.
However, while the second wave of the coronavirus epidemic has set off alarm bells, a reassuring sign is that the severity of the disease appears to be significantly less than before, as is evident from the declining death rate, noted the indianexpress.com Mar 13. IT noted that India’s overall case fatality ratio (CFR), or the number of deaths as a proportion of confirmed infections, was around 1.4%. However, among those who were infected from January onward, this ratio was only about 0.87%.
At nearly 24,900, India’s latest daily new cases reported this morning was the highest daily rise in the last 83 days, noted the ndtv.com Mar 13, citing the country’s ministry of health data.
And the gap between total recovered cases and active cases was constantly rising and stood at 10,771,238 today, reported the timesofindia.com Mar 13.
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The latest data from India’s Ministry of Health and Family Welfare show that there were 24,882 new Covid-19 cases and 140 new deaths in the country in the past 24 hours as of Mar 13 at 8 AM, taking their cumulative totals to 11,333,728 cases and 158,446 deaths respectively.
A total of 10,973,260, or 96.82%, had recovered while the number of active cases was 202,022, or 1.74% of the total. The case fatality was at 1.4%.
The latest daily number of new cases, at 24,882, was significantly more than the daily number of those who had recovered, at 19,957, leading to a significant increase in the number of active cases by 4,785.
Sixteen states have reported more than 100 new cases in the last 24 hours, namely Maharashtra (15,817), Kerala (1,780), Punjab (1,408), Karnataka (833), Gujarat (715), Tamil Nadu (670), Madhya Pradesh (603), Chattisgarh (447), Delhi (431), Haryana (385), West Bengal (277), Rajasthan (237), Telangana (216), Andhra Pradesh (210), Uttar Pradesh (167), and Chandigarh (135).
Eight states have reported 4 or more Covid-19 deaths each in the last 24 hours, namely Maharashtra (56), Punjab (34), Kerala (14), Karnataka (5), Chattisgarh (5), Tamil Nadu (4), and Haryana (4). The rest of the states have reported 2 or less deaths.
India is currently the country with the world’s second highest number of Covid-19 cases and the fourth highest number of deaths in cumulative numbers.
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Across the world the number of Covid-19 cases totaled 119,149,625 and the deaths 2,641,137, according to the tally of Johns Hopkins University as of 3:55 PM on Mar 13, 2021.
