COVID-19 In India: Over 6 Million Total Cases, Over 5 Million Recover!

By CHINMAY CHAKRAVARTY - September 28, 2020

India has crossed 6 million or 60 lakh total COVID-19 cases last evening. The situation is slightly better as it has taken 13 days to add one million new cases as against the 11 days taken for the rise to 5 million from 4 million on 16^th September. Except for the last twenty-four hours daily recoveries had been more than daily new cases for about a week, and more hopefully, after a supposed peak of over 98.000 new cases on a day about ten days back the spikes have been consistently less than 90,000 for the last week. For the last twenty-four hours new cases were 82,170 while daily recoveries lagged behind at 74,893 cases. Daily fatalities have also been consistently above 1000 with total fatalities at a mammoth 95,542 now. Out of the total 6,074,702 total infections 5,016,520 have recovered so far. The next few days are going to be crucial if India has indeed reached the peak and that from now onwards the trend would be more recoveries than new infections.

Maharashtra continues to be a cause of concern with the daily new cases still hovering around 20,000; daily deaths still in the range of 300-500 per day; the fatality rate still over 2,5%; total deaths at 35,571; and daily recoveries falling short of new cases for the last twenty-four hours. The number of active cases at 2,73,646 is still very high, continuing to stress the healthcare system in the state, particularly in small towns and rural areas. The other state of worry is Karnataka where the daily surge has been consistently high, much more than the daily recoveries. The surge is also there in Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Odisha and others, but in those states daily recoveries are somewhat offsetting the daily spikes, so far. The most surprising case is that of Kerala: the state that had been a great example of aggressive containment for the whole country in the early stages; but now, there has been a very heavy surge of more than 7000 daily cases for the last few days, and daily recoveries lagging behind. For states like Bihar, Assam, Telangana, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and others, nothing much can be said about the future course of the pandemic at the moment.

The light of hope must be kept burning even as the worship of Mother Goddesses starts from the 17^th of October. More unlocking is imminent from next month considering the festival season. West Bengal becomes the first state to reopen cinema halls and auditoriums from the 1^st of October 2020. However, with the limit of audience set at maximum 50 people per show, it is not clear how the entertainment industry, particularly the cinema theatres, is going to make the shows profitable, or even feasible. Further, most people would not be willing to agree to exorbitant ticket prices. We have no option but to wait for the all-important month of October 2020. Not to burden our minds at the moment about the long winter after that.