At last there seems to be a hint of a decline in India’s COVID cases. Although the country logged over 3,20,000 cases on Tuesday, 11 May, this is the third consecutive dip in active cases in the overall tally.
The overall dip is also coinciding with a drop in cases and positivity rate in two of the worst-affected places in the country — Delhi and Maharashtra.
While Delhi reported 12,481 fresh infections on 12 May, the positivity rate has come down further below to 17.76 percent on the same day (which is the lowest that we’ve seen since mid-April). In Maharashtra as well, the daily positivity rate has dropped below 20 percent for the third consecutive day even as the state reported a little less than 50,000 cases on 12 May. The state's active cases have also fallen below six lakhs.
Does this suggest that the worst is over? Have we passed the peak or is there more to it? In this podcast, we keep the focus of our analysis on the capital — Delhi –– while looking at some of the upcoming trends in smaller states.
Our guests for this episode are Dr Mathew Varghese, a public health expert and orthopaedic surgeon at St Stephens Hospital in Delhi, Dr Murad Banaji, a mathematician at Middlesex University with an interest in disease modelling, and Vaishali Sood, the Editor of Quint Fit – The Quint's health vertical. Tune in!
(At The Quint, we question everything. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member today.)