Kovid Korner

Another calm day for India today, with the number of cases recovering catching up with the number of new cases. 49,931 new cases in India today with 31,991  recoveries, leading to an increase in the number of active cases by just 17,232. One of the worst hit cities, Delhi actually registered a decrease in number of active cases by 753. Other states which were previously quiet like AP and Karnataka registered a surge.

How well India has managed to cope up with the Coronavirus crises can be seen from the chart below. Our death rate, has dropped from 3.5% in June to 2.3% now, and is lowest among the 6 worst affected countries in the world, that of UK being 14% and of US being 3.5%. Our recovery rate is now 64%, that of US being 30%. Immediate lockdown when India had just 394 cases is one of the main reasons for this excellent performance. If we take the number of cases and deaths in relation to the population, we are much better off than most countries in the world. Per million people, India has a case rate of just 538, against the world average of 1,453. Ofcourse, let there be no doubt, that soon we will have the highest number of TOTAL cases in the world, simply but that will be because of the sheer volume of our population.

Uttarakhand had a normal day on Monday with 224 new cases and as many as 109 recoveries, so the net increase is barely 115 cases for the entire state. Out of 224 new cases, just 78 had no travel or contact history, rest all were people who came back to our State or were primary contacts of known cases. So local community spread in Uttarakhand is still minimal. Dehradun had 10 cases, out of which 5 were contacts of positive cases. Another piece of good news is that the doubling rate in Uttarakhand is 22.45 days which is above the National average of 20 days. For comparison sake Banguluru’s doubling rate is 4 days. Unfortunately three people lost their life in Uttarakhand today due to COVID related complications.