As the United States and Europe grapple with fresh surges in coronavirus cases, the outbreak in India is slowing for the first time since the pandemic began. After seeing a drastic surge in the number of active cases in the month of September, the number of new infections per day in India dropped sharply in the month October.
In the month of September, India had overtaken Brazil to become the country with the second-highest number of COVID-19 patients in the world. However, things started to take a positive turn and the number of active cases began to slow down in India thereafter. In fact, on October 19, as per Government records, for the first time since July end, India recorded less than 50,000 new infections of the novel coronavirus.
According to the graphical representation of the new daily cases in India in worldometers, one can see a consistent decline in the number of daily coronavirus cases in India after September 16, 2020. According to the graph, on September 16, India recorded 97,859 active COVID cases. Yesterday, November 8, this number fell to 46,661.
The total number of active cases in India also witnessed a steep fall since the middle of September. The active cases which were 10,14,649 on September 18 fell to 5,11,551 on November 8. India has seen a significant bent in the curce of active cases since mid-September and if the trend continues, India might be heading for some good news.
There does not appear to be an overall decline in testing across the country. India appears to be conducting well over a million tests everyday on an average. The number of total tests in India conducted on November 9 stood at 8,35,401 against the normal range of 10 to 12 lakh tests every day.
There was a concern that India could witness a sharp spike as the country enters its festive season. That does not appear to be happening thus far. Given the consistent decline in the number of active cases, it appears good news for the country during the festive season. However, as can be witnessed in Europe which is currently suffering from a second wave of a Coronavirus surge, there remains ample reason to exercise caution.
Based on mathematical and statistical forecasting on the spread of the deadly pathogen, a panel of scientists and doctors had claimed on October 20 that if all protocols are followed, the pandemic can be controlled by end of February 2021 with minimal active symptomatic cases.
The panel, which used the real-time dataset to make the prognosis, claimed that 30 per cent of India’s population was already projected to have developed antibodies, which indicated that they had been infected with the virus. Further, the panel estimated that there would be around 106 lakh symptomatic infections during the course of the pandemic. Currently, the panel claimed, there are an estimated 66 lakh symptomatic infections.
The panel also said that in a ‘no lockdown’ scenario, cases would have been at least 14 times of what they actually were in the month of June, when the peak had begun.
Currently, India stands second behind the US in terms of active cases of COVID-19 as well as total caseload, according to Worldometer. Also, the country is in the dominant position in terms of the number of recovered cases and third in terms of fatalities globally behind the US and Brazil.
