On Friday, India became the third country in the world to cross 2 million cases of SARS CoV-2 infection. Though India is far behind the US and Brazil on the total number of cases, weekly infections in the country are higher than Brazil, and only slightly lower than the US. India has surpassed the US in terms of daily infections thrice since Monday. Deaths in the country are also galloping.
Last week, India had surpassed Italy and France to move to the fifth spot in terms of total deaths. Now, it is inching closer to the UK. By next week, India would have reported the fourth highest number of coronavirus deaths so far. It already occupies the third position as far as weekly deaths are concerned. While spread in hotspots has slowed down, new centres of infections are emerging that are driving growth in cases.
The worrying aspect is that India’s positivity rate—new infections upon new tests—is still highest among other nations with high incidence of coronavirus infections. As of July 7, India had an average positivity of 8.5%, whereas the US positivity was 7.4%. Death rates in India are the lowest.