At current pace, India can reach 1.5 million cases in 7 days

As of Wednesday morning, India has 411,133 active cases and 28,732 deaths have been attributed to the infection, the health ministry data showed. The seven-day spike in deaths is 18%, in line with the preceding week. The seven-day rolling averages have been considered for these calculations since they minimize the effect of volatile and delayed reporting.

For over a month, new infections and deaths have been rising faster in India than in most other badly-hit countries. The country has the third highest number of active cases, after the United States and Brazil. The toll is the eighth highest in the world. Among high-fatality countries (more than 10,000 deaths), India has recorded the biggest spike in deaths as well as active cases over the past week.

With cases rising, India’s health facilities and workforce continue to be under severe strain. The risk of further spread is higher now as the economy has started to reopen and most public movement is allowed.

Among states, Maharashtra (12,276), Delhi (3,690), Tamil Nadu (2,626), Gujarat (2,196) and Karnataka (1,464) have reported the most deaths. These states together account for 77% of all covid-related deaths in India so far. However, only two of them, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, have seen a bigger spike than the national average in the last seven days.

Of the 12 states with the most active cases, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Bihar have reported the biggest percentage jumps in deaths. In terms of active cases, Bihar, Kerala and Andhra Pradesh led the surge in this period, based on the seven-day rolling averages.

It is worth noting that data quality on cases and deaths vary across countries and regions because of factors such as differences in testing standards, and in protocols being followed for recording covid-related deaths.

Among states with more than 10,000 cases so far, Delhi and Kerala have conducted the most tests per million population per day in the last two weeks, and West Bengal and Bihar the fewest, data collected by The Hindu showed.

Among the 15 districts with the highest number of new cases in the last 48 hours, the biggest percentage spikes were reported by three districts in Andhra Pradesh—West Godavari (29%), East Godavari (28%) and Guntur (24%). In absolute numbers, Pune and Thane in Maharashtra and Bengaluru in Karnataka reported the biggest increase in cases during this period, data from howindialives.com showed.

So far, at least 512 out of over 700 districts in India have had at least one covid-related death. Mumbai (5,817 deaths) has reported the most, followed by Thane (2,084), Ahmedabad (1,560), Pune (1,485), and Chennai (1,476). Bengaluru in Karnataka, Kolkata in West Bengal, and Jalgaon and Solapur in Maharashtra are the other districts with 400 or more deaths. This list does not include Delhi, where the government does not provide district-wise data. State-level data shows Delhi (3,690 deaths) has the second-worst toll after Mumbai.

The number of coronavirus infections is likely to keep increasing in the coming days, with India now consistently testing over 300,000 samples per day. According to the Indian Council for Medical Research, nearly 14.7 million samples have been tested as of Sunday, compared to 12.4 million samples a week ago.

India has reported 1,192,195 coronavirus cases in all since the beginning of the outbreak in late January. Out of these, 63%, or 753,050 had been discharged by Wednesday, as compared to 56% a month ago. India’s case fatality rate—2.4 deaths per 100 infections—is lower than the global average of 4.1% at the moment.

Meanwhile, the global coronavirus case count has crossed 14.9 million, including over 615,000 deaths and nearly 8.4 million recoveries (57%). – Livemint