India’s sharp rise in Covid-19 cases linked to increased testing

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A healthcare worker wearing personal protective equipment (PPE) takes swab from a teacher of a municipal school for a rapid antigen test at a community center. (Photo courtesy: Reuters)

(TibetanReview.net, Jul29’20) – India now tests nearly 500,000 samples each day, which is one of the key reasons for the rise in the number of people detected to be infected with the Covid-19 pandemic disease, reported indianexpress.com Jul 29. However, many states, including several of them with caseloads of more than 20,000, were still testing less than 15,000 samples each day, the report added. This only means that the number of cases will rise significantly in the coming days. The testing rate in India is seen to be still among the lowest in the most affected countries.

The tally of India’s Ministry of Health shows that there were 48,513 new cases – the second highest daily rise thus far – and 768 new deaths in the country during the past 24 hours as of Jul 29 at 8AM, taking their totals to 1,531,669 cases and 34,193 deaths.

A total of 988,029, or 64.51%, had recovered, so that the number of active cases was 509,193.

This is the seventh consecutive day the number of cases increased by more than 45,000.

India is currently adding nearly 100,000 every two days to its Covid-19 tally.

The latest daily number of new cases, at 48,513, was more than the daily number of those who recovered at 35,286.

Besides being the country with the third highest total number of infections, standing behind the USA and Brazil, and India has logged the sixth highest number of deaths after the USA, Brazil, the UK, Mexico, and Italy.

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The nine worst-hit states with more than 50,000 cases were led by Maharashtra with a total of 391,440 cases after 7717 new cases were reported in the past 24 hours, followed by Tamil Nadu with 227,688 (↑6972) cases, Delhi with 132,275 (↑1056) cases, Andhra Pradesh 110,297 (↑7948), Karnataka 107,001 (↑5536), Uttar Pradesh 73,951 (↑3458), West Bengal 62,964 (↑2134), Telangana 57,142 (↑), and Gujarat 57,982 (↑1108) cases.

There were nine other states with more than 10,000 cases: Bihar 43,843 (↑2599), Rajasthan 38,514 (↑1636), Assam 34,947 (↑1371); Haryana 32,876 (↑749), Madhya Pradesh 29,217 (↑628); Odisha 28,207 (↑1,215); Kerala 20,894 (↑1167), Jammu & Kashmir 18,879 (↑489), and Punjab 14,378 (↑609).

Besides, there were eleven other states/ Union Territories with more than 1,000 cases: Jharkhand 9,078 (↑395), Chattisgarh 8,257 (↑512), Uttarakhand 6,587 (↑259), Goa 5,287 (↑168), Tripura 4,269 (↑220), Puducherry 3,011 (↑139), Himachal Pradesh 2,330 (↑60), Manipur 2,317 (↑31), Nagaland 1,460 (↑75), Arunachal Pradesh 1,330 (↑91), and Ladakh 1,327 (↑21).

Finally, there were six other states/ Union Territories with less than 1,000 cases: Dadra and Nagar Haveli 982 ((↑36), Chandigarh 934 (↑24), Meghalaya 779 (↑41) cases, Sikkim 579 (↑24), Mizoram 384 (↑), Andaman and Nicobar Islands 363 (↑25).

Only Lakshadweep does not have any covid-19 case.

Maharashtra also had the most number of deaths at 14,165 (↑282), followed by Delhi 3,881 (↑28), Tamil Nadu 3,659 (↑88), Gujarat 2,372 (↑24), Karnataka 2,055 (↑102), Uttar Pradesh 1,497 (↑41), West Bengal 1,449 (↑38), Andhra Pradesh 1,148 (↑58), Madhya Pradesh 830 (↑10), Rajasthan 644 (↑13), Telangana 480 (↑), Haryana 406 (↑9), Punjab 336 (↑18), Bihar 269 (↑16), Jammu & Kashmir 333 (↑12), Odisha 154 (↑7), Jharkhand 89 (↑), Assam 88 (↑2), Uttarakhand 70 (↑4), Kerala 67 (↑4), Puducherry 47 (↑4), Chattisgarh 46 (↑2), Goa 36 (↑), Tripura 21 (↑4), Chandigarh 14 (↑), Himachal Pradesh 14 (↑0), Meghalaya 5 (↑0), Nagaland 5 (↑), Ladakh 6 (↑2), Arunachal Pradesh 3 (↑0), Andaman and Nicobar Islands 1 (↑0), and Sikkim 1 (↑0).

Two States with Covid-19 cases have reported no deaths so far. Manipur has been reported to have seen its first Covid-19 death, although this is not reflected in the government tally.

(Source: https://www.mohfw.gov.in/)

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For the first time in two months, the 2,000-bed LNJP Hospital, a dedicated Covid-19 facility under the Delhi government, did not see any Covid-19 death on Jul 27.

The incidence of coronavirus in the national capital has been showing a declining trend with many beds remaining empty. Till Jul 28 evening, only about 389 of the LNJPHospital’s beds were occupied by Covid-19 patients, with 88 of them being in ICU and two on ventilators.

However, on Jul 29, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal directed officers to ensure strict compliance with existing guidelines on Covid-19 testing in the national capital, two days after the Delhi Hight Court asked his Aam Aadmi Party government why it was going with Rapid Antigen Testing (RAT), which has a high rate of false negative results, as the primary test for the infection, reported timesofindia.com Jul 29.

Nevertheless, with the Covid-19 situation under control, Delhi government may delink the hotels attached to different hospitals after the chief minister holds a meeting with the health department on Jul 29 to discuss the issue, the report said.

The city’s recovery rate was 88.83% (against the national recovery rate of 64%) while the positivity rate was 5.69%.

The city’s still has 715 containment zones.

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Across the world the total number of Covid-19 cases had surged close to 16.74 million mark to reach 16,741,049 while a total of 660,593 had died as of Jul 29 at 02:05:30 PM, according to the Dashboard maintained by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University.

There were 245,740 new cases and 6,266 new deaths during the past 25 hours or so across 188 countries and regions.

The countries with the most number of reported Covid-19 cases thus far were the US (4,352,084), Brazil (2,483,191), India (1,531,669), Russia (827,455), South Africa (459,761), Mexico (402,697), Peru (395,005), Chile (349,800), UK (302,295),  … China (86,990).

The countries with the most number of Covid-19 deaths were the US (149,258), Brazil (88,539), the UK (45,963), Mexico (44,876), Italy (35,123), India (34,193), France (30,226), Spain (28,436) … China (4,657).

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