With 9,889 new cases reported on Thursday, India has emerged as home to the third fastest growing Coronavirus patient population in the world.
India broke the 6,000 new case per day mark on May 19, the 7000 cases/day mark on May 24, the 8,000/day mark on May 29 and the 9,000/day mark on June 3 — giving a 5-day interval between each milestone.
However, within a day of breaking the 9,000 mark, India’s total new cases per day has risen to 9,889, suggesting that it may soon take out the 10,000 mark.
With this, India is now placed third in the world in terms of new Coronavirus cases reported.
It has overtaken long-time No.3 Russia, which reported only 8,831 fresh cases of COVID-19 on Thursday compared to India’s 9,889.
India’s doubling time of total reported cases has remained almost constant at around 15 days through April and May, when the country was under a lockdown.
However, given the substantial relaxations given in the lockdown this month, there is a good chance that the speed of growth of Coronavirus cases in the country may increase and doubling time may fall.
Even if doubling time does not fall, India will have around 4 lakh cases by mid June, 8 lakh cases by end of June, 16 lakh cases by the middle of July and 32 lakh cases by the end of next month. If no new steps — such as a lock-down are taken, then the number of cases reported will rise to 1.28 crore by the end of August going by current trends.
RECOVERY vs DEATH
Meanwhile, India’s recovery and death percentages have improved constantly, but seem to have hit a plateau.
Recovery rate, which was at 78.13% on April 15, improved to 91.66% by May 15. It hit a peak of 94.51% on June 2, and has remained more or less constant since then, indicating that this may be India’s ‘natural recovery rate’.
At one time, the death rate was as high as 20% and has now fallen to about 5.5%.
This means that out of 20 COVID-19 patients in India, 19 are likely to survive the infection, while one is likely to die.
Interestingly, India’s death rate of 5.5% is the same as that of its neighbor Pakistan, but is slightly better than the death rate of 6% seen in Bangladesh. China’s death rate of 5.59% is also in line with that of India’s, while Iran’s death rate is 5.95%.
India’s southern neighbor Sri Lanka, however, has reported an even lower death rate of only 1.3%, though the total number of cases in the country are also much lower at around 1,800.
Among European countries, Germany has a low death rate of 4.94%, while the UK’s number is estimated at around 25%. The United States has a death rate of 13.4%
Within India, death rates are higher in West Bengal (11.4%), Gujarat (8.4%), Maharashtra (7.4%), Madhya Pradesh (6.3%) and Delhi (6.2%).