Only a third of India’s population lives in urban areas, but they account for nearly two-thirds of the country’s infections. The recent surge — over 25,320 infections reported on Sunday — extends beyond megacities like Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai and Bengaluru, spilling over to other urban pockets. For instance, Indore on Sunday reported 247 fresh cases — a five-fold increase over the last month. The share of urban infections has risen from 62% in October to 65.1% currently. Urban centres also now account for 73% of India’s total deaths with the richer, more urbanised states reporting more deaths per capita.
Maharashtra, which has 45% of its population living in urban areas, has registered 429 deaths per million, while Tamil Nadu with a 48% urban population as per the 2011 Census has a death rate of 161 per million.
In contrast, Bihar (11.3% urban population) and Odisha (16.7% urban population) have seen a much lower death ratio; on March 14, Odisha had only 41.38 deaths per million. India has 116 deaths per million.
While Kerala had 30,518 infections per million till March 14, against the all-India average of 8,283, Bihar had only 2,107 infections, whereas Uttar Pradesh had 2,544.
Meanwhile, the share of rural infections has dropped to 18.8% but the share of deaths has risen slightly to 14% from 13.6% in mid-December.
