In just 10 days, its numbers may surpass China’s corona numbers
Going by the total number of infections, India is the 15th worst affected country, but measured by the quantum of daily spike in absolute terms, India is now in the league of big 5 after the US, the UK, Russia and Brazil. In percentage terms — calculated on the basis of total positive cases — the volume of its daily rise leaves it only behind Russia among the top five nations.
On Monday, India recorded 3,900 positive cases, less than the rise registered by the US 24,663 cases, Russia 10,581, the UK 3,985 and Brazil 7,119 in the same 24 hours. Apart from these four nations, and Peru which is giving a hot chase, India has left all other countries far behind in contributing in absolute daily terms. With this speed, India will take just 10 days to beat China’s count.
There is another noticeable factor that should worry Indian policy makers: In terms of overall count, India has far less positive cases compared to any of these top four or five countries.
Take the case of the United Kingdom. It recorded 3,985 new cases from a base of 1,90,584 cases. India matched the UK’s number from a 4.5 half time lower base, signifying the speed with which the virus is spreading across the country.
Making similar comparison with the US, Russia and Brazil, it shows that India is also adding far more cases in percentage terms compared to them.
Take the case of the US which has 12,12,785 cases. In percentage term the addition of 24,663 cases is around two per cent. The UK’s rise is also nearly 2 per cent only. But India’s daily spike will stand around 6-7 per cent, which is extraordinarily high on the global scale.
Such huge daily spike from a relatively lower base places the country on an alarming trajectory because of its lower testing and huge population size.
This was not a one-off day when cases in India shot up in a big way due to Maharashtra recording nearly 1,600 new cases. India was the sixth largest daily contributors on daily basis on May 3 also when it logged 2,687 cases, the US 27,248, the UK 4,339 cases , Russia 10,633 cases , Brazil 4,588 and Peru 3,394 cases.
Other than these countries, India is clocking far bigger numbers than some of the other nations — China, Spain, Italy, the UK, Turkey , Iran, Canada and Belgium, to name a few.
The speed with which cases are rising in India, it should take just 10 more days when the country will overtake China (82,881 cases), the progenitor of coronavirus. China’s highly disputed numbers are rising in a single digit for the last several days.
The global trend shows that many of the countries went through a phase of consolidation after reaching a threshold and then their numbers shot up alarmingly. For example, Russia is now registering more than 10,000 plus numbers after remaining below a total of 1,000 on April 8 and then consolidating for days.
The situation looks alarming for India also because it has carried out far less tests than other countries making it near impossible to know the extent of the spread of the disease. India has so far carried out only 864 tests per million population, which is a dismal figure when compared to even neighboring Pakistan, which has carried out 1007 tests per million.
Among the worst affected 15 nations, India’s test count of 864 case per million population is far below the USA (22,454 tests 1m PoP), Spain (41,332 tests 1 m PoP) and Italy (36, 244 test 1m PoP), the UK (19,026 tests 1m PoP), France (16,856 tests 1m PoP) and Germany (30,400 test 1m PoP).
