By Dr Nitin Pandey
DEHRADUN, 5 Aug:Day before yesterday, headlines across both the electronic and print media were screaming that India has the highest increase in number of patients in the world. What they forgot to mention is that while it was true for that particular day, it was the first time this happened. Subsequent days when the counts dropped no one mentioned that the “highest cases” title was a single day affair and India was back to the third or fourth position worldwide. The scary impression that single day headlines created in minds of many in India was never soothed. Statistics should be viewed from different angles and analysed relatively, rather than viewing absolute figures. Here are some different statistics for you.
As of today in India there has been one case of coronavirus per 723 persons and we rank 93rd in the list, the leader being Qatar with one case per 25 persons. Kuwait has one case per 62 persons, US one case per 65. In the list of cases per million people, India ranks 91st, with 1383 cases per million population. Qatar tops the list with 39,724 cases per million, US has 14,853. If we compare number of deaths per X persons, India fares even better, standing at number 121, with 1 death per 34,657 persons. Belgium has 1 death per 1,177 persons, UK per 1467 and Spain per 1641 persons. So, instead of blaring gross figures, we must analyse them with reference to the population and judge objectively. Yes, we fare poorly in the list of number of tests per million, we stand at number 127 with just 15,554 tests per million, the leader being Monaco with a nearly perfect 10/10 with 9,73,031 tests per million.
Continuing with the good news, the number of active cases in India actually dropped for the first time, (a nominal drop of 54), with 52,509 new cases and almost matching 51,706 recoveries. Maharashtra, TN, Karnataka and Delhi all recorded a drop in number of active cases and an increase in recoveries, which is extremely good news. Equally good is news from Uttarakhand where the recoveries outnumber new cases. There were 246 new cases on Wednesday while 386 people recovered. Out of 246 cases, only 75 were local spread (30%), rest being people coming back to Uttarakhand. Dehradun had 47 cases with 30 having no positive history. Three people succumbed to COVID-19, one each in Haldwani, Rishikesh and Dehradun.
