According to the Health Ministry, 18 states and union territories have shown large improvement in curbing the spread of COVID-19 pandemic with Odisha and Kerala leading the pack.
These were States with a ‘doubling time’ which is an indicator of how quickly cases increase of more than 8.5 days and thus “above” the national average of 7.5 days. This was the result of the effective measures that have been taken to contain the spread of the virus, Joint Secretary in the Ministry Lav Agrawal said.
Kerala has led the States with a doubling rate of 72 days and they are followed at a considerable distance by Odisha at 39.8 days.
These improvement in doubling rates has eased some pressure off the medical authorities.
The Health Ministry confirmed 17,655 cases with 14,255 active infections and 559 deaths on Monday.
However, the Ministry’s doubling numbers didn’t show the fact that these States account for only about 7,000 of India’s overall COVID-19 count. While on the other hand, just five States with a doubling rate less than the national average account for about 10,000 or about 60% of the case-load.
On Monday,Maharashtra stood first in number of cases at 4,400 and it reported a doubling of cases in six days. Gujarat’s 1,800 cases had doubled in 4.5 days and Madhya Pradesh with 1,407 cases had a doubling in 5.5 days.
We all know that these stats are dynamic and liable to change everyday. The epidemic has affected 32 of 36 India’s States and Union Territories. Delhi (8.5) and Tamil Nadu (14) were also included in the Health Ministry’s list of regions that had doubling times under 20 days but these were also among the leading contributors to India’s case load. After Maharashtra, Delhi follows with 2,000 cases and Tamil Nadu is the fifth largest contributor with 1,477 cases.
States like Ladakh, Uttarakhand, Assam, Chandigarh, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana and Andaman and Nicobar islands recorded doubling times of 20-30 days.
