New Delhi: The Covid-19 infection spread has slowed down in Chhattisgarh — one of the worst-affected states — with the effective reproduction rate (R) dropping to 0.93 this week from 1.56 last week.
The effective reproduction number (R) for Covid-19 indicates how fast the infection is spreading. For a pandemic to come to an end, the R value has to be sustained under 1.
However, active cases in Chhattisgarh, which were on a decline since the last few days, increased over the last 24 hours. On 16 April, Chhattisgarh had 1,24,303 active cases, which fell to 1,22,963 by Sunday. In the last 24 hours, the active cases rose to 1,23,835.
India’s overall R also remained the same as last week — 1.31.
Sitabhra Sinha, a professor at the Institute of Mathematical Sciences in Chennai, who has been tracking R values since the beginning of the pandemic said the overall R for India remains unchanged at 1.31.
R for major states
Currently, Uttar Pradesh is the state with the highest R, although the metric has dropped to 1.84 this week from last week’s 1.87. The state currently has 2,97,616 active cases, and it reported over 200 deaths in the last 24 hours.
Odisha has now emerged as one of the 16 states with the highest active cases in the country. It’s R is now the second-highest in the country at 1.71, having increased from 1.50 around 12 April. As of Monday, the state recorded 42,538 active cases of Covid-19.
Odisha is followed by Bihar, where R is 1.62, a drop from last week’s 1.97. The state currently has 87,155 active Covid cases.
Maharashtra, which has the highest burden of active Covid cases in the country, also has a relatively lower R value of 1.13. India’s R closely mirrors the R of Maharashtra, which may explain why the number for the country as a whole has not increased.
Similarly, Delhi has a R of 1.60, although it is slightly lower than last week’s 1.62.
For West Bengal too, R has reduced this week to 1.59 from 1.61. Rajasthan has seen a similar fall to 1.59 this week from 1.62 last week.
Gujarat and Uttarakhand have maintained R similar to last week — 1.55 and 1.54, respectively. Like Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand’s R has also dropped to 1.50 from last week’s 1.72.
Haryana, meanwhile, saw it’s R rise to 1.5 from 1.34. Similarly, Telangana’s R has also increased to 1.45 this week from 1.40.
Kerala too has seen an increase in its R to 1.61 this week from 1.44 last week.
Punjab is another state that saw a spike in it’s R to 1.22 this week from 1.14.
Major cities
Currently, Mumbai is seeing a dip in its active cases as R has been below 1 for the last two weeks. As of this week, Mumbai’s R is at 0.94.
Meanwhile, Pune’s R value has gone down to 1.13 this week from last week’s 1.24
For Bengaluru, R has increased to 1.42 from last week’s 1.40. Kolkata has R at 1.48, similar to last week.
(Edited by Neha Mahajan)
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