Amid the recent surge of Covid cases globally, India’s numbers remain largely stable. Though there has been a marginal rise in cases in the country in the week ending Sunday, reversing a nine-week trend of declining numbers, it’s too early to say whether this indicates a fresh trend.
While overall numbers remain very low, cases rose 11% from the previous week’s tally of 1,103, to 1,219, as per TOI’s Covid database. A slight uptick in infections was seen in Maharashtra, several northern states such as Rajasthan, Punjab, Delhi and Himachal Pradesh as well as in Telangana and West Bengal. It’s not clear yet whether the rise is an early sign of an increasing spread of new virus sub-variants or simply a result of more testing in the wake of the China scare. Covid deaths continue to remain very low, with 20 reported in the week as opposed to 12 in the previous one.
The comparison of the week ending this Sunday with the previous one shows that 16 states and UTs reported an increase in weekly cases, for nine others cases remained at the same level as the previous week while the remaining 11 reported fewer cases this week. Even in the states where cases increased, Rajasthan and Punjab are the only ones to report a rise of more than 30 cases each. Kerala, on the other hand, saw a decline of 31 cases.
At the global level too, the seven-day average of daily cases has seen a slow but steady decline in the past six days. From 5.5 lakh daily cases on Dec 18, the average declined to 5.1 lakh cases on Dec 23 — the day for which the latest data is available. This decline could be the impact of holidays as well as because of unreliable data from China. Many experts are now questioning China’s numbers, which remain steady in December despite many disturbing pictures being shared on social media.
With a 7-day average of 1.3 lakh cases, Japan remains the worst-hit country in the ongoing wave and is followed by the USA and South Korea – the only other countries to report more than 50,000 daily on average. The case count is between 30,000 and 50,000 for Germany, Brazil and France while China with little over 20,000 cases was the seventh worst hit on the list. In terms of the daily average of cases, India is ranked 61st globally and for a country of its size, this case count does not seem alarming.
While overall numbers remain very low, cases rose 11% from the previous week’s tally of 1,103, to 1,219, as per TOI’s Covid database. A slight uptick in infections was seen in Maharashtra, several northern states such as Rajasthan, Punjab, Delhi and Himachal Pradesh as well as in Telangana and West Bengal. It’s not clear yet whether the rise is an early sign of an increasing spread of new virus sub-variants or simply a result of more testing in the wake of the China scare. Covid deaths continue to remain very low, with 20 reported in the week as opposed to 12 in the previous one.
The comparison of the week ending this Sunday with the previous one shows that 16 states and UTs reported an increase in weekly cases, for nine others cases remained at the same level as the previous week while the remaining 11 reported fewer cases this week. Even in the states where cases increased, Rajasthan and Punjab are the only ones to report a rise of more than 30 cases each. Kerala, on the other hand, saw a decline of 31 cases.
At the global level too, the seven-day average of daily cases has seen a slow but steady decline in the past six days. From 5.5 lakh daily cases on Dec 18, the average declined to 5.1 lakh cases on Dec 23 — the day for which the latest data is available. This decline could be the impact of holidays as well as because of unreliable data from China. Many experts are now questioning China’s numbers, which remain steady in December despite many disturbing pictures being shared on social media.
With a 7-day average of 1.3 lakh cases, Japan remains the worst-hit country in the ongoing wave and is followed by the USA and South Korea – the only other countries to report more than 50,000 daily on average. The case count is between 30,000 and 50,000 for Germany, Brazil and France while China with little over 20,000 cases was the seventh worst hit on the list. In terms of the daily average of cases, India is ranked 61st globally and for a country of its size, this case count does not seem alarming.
