Covid-19: Positive sign in five high caseload states

NEW DELHI: While active cases of Covid-19 are rising on a daily basis led by rapidly rising positive cases across the country, the health ministry data show that the trajectory of average daily active cases in the five high burden states have declined during the last week (August 27-September 2), as compared to the week of August 13-19.
Five high burden states - Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu - account for 62% of active cases in the country. The data also shows that Tamil Nadu saw an almost 24% decrease in average number of daily active cases during Aug 27-Sep 2 as compared to August 13-19. In Maharashtra, it dropped by 6.8%. UP, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh also showed a decline by around 17%, 16% and 13.7% respectively. However, Maharashtra has recorded high numbers on a daily basis and has a worrying positivity rate that hovers around 20%.
There have been fluctuations in the week of August 20-26 where the number has gone up as compared to the August 13-19 week, but over all, in the three week period, the states have registered a decline.
Overall, active cases across the country are increasing consistently despite high number of recoveries on a daily basis. On Wednesday, 68,584 Covid-19 patients were discharged from either home isolation or hospital taking the total number of recoveries to nearly 30 lakh. Despite this, the active case-load of the country stood at 8,15,538, up from 8,01,282 a day ago. Not too long ago, the number was in the 7 lakh region.
More on Covid-19
In case of deaths, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Delhi and Tamil Nadu account for 70% of the total Covid-19 deaths in the country. However, only Karnataka and Delhi saw a surge week-on-week between these three weeks.
"On a week-to-week basis, there has been 4.5 per cent decrease in average daily deaths reported in Andhra Pradesh, 11.5 per cent decline in Maharashtra and 18.2 per cent decline in Tamil Nadu. On the other hand, Delhi has seen 50 per cent and Karnataka 9.6 per cent increase in average daily fatalities," he said.
The government said though the overall positive cases are increasing, it has to be seen in the context of India's population. Bhushan said India has 2,792 cases of Covid-19 per million population which is amongst the lowest in the world. Brazil has 18,802 cases, whereas US has 18,986 cases per million population.
He added that in India, deaths per million population is 49 whereas the world average is 111 deaths.