Covid-19 Factoid: India is doubling its tally at double the global pace

While Brazil has added its eighth lot of 100,000 cases in just 3 days, in India Punjab stares at a second wave of Covid-19 infections

The global count of confirmed coronavirus cases is now at 7.6 million, and death toll at 424,362. About 3.8 million patients have recovered from the infection so far. The US, which alone has over 2 million cases, is followed by Brazil, Russia and India – in that order.

India is at the fourth spot in the world by number of confirmed cases, at over 300,000. Of these, 141,842 people have recovered so far, and 8,498 patients have died. Maharashtra, the most affected state in India, is nearing the 100,000 mark in total cases. Among the most affected states with more than 10,000 cases each, Delhi has the highest number of active cases, at more than 60 per cent.

Here are some data points on the pandemic:

#1. In a worrying trend, India’s doubling rate is close to Brazil’s

India is taking 17 days to double its cases, while Brazil took the least, at 16 days. This is less than half the global average of 36 days. By comparison, the previous epicentres of the pandemic, such as Spain and Italy, took 70 days. Even the US, with 2 million cases, took a higher-than-average number of days to double its count.

#2. Brazil took just three days to add 100,000 new cases

Brazil, the second-worst-affected country in the world, recently crossed the 800,000-case mark. Its latest 100,000 confirmed cases came in the shortest amount of time - just three days. By comparison, the first 100,000 cases had been registered in 69 days. In fact, every 100,000 cases after the first has taken progressively fewer number of days to come by. Brazil has a death toll of 41,058, and almost half of all confirmed cases have recovered.

#3. Punjab might have to brace itself for a second wave

Punjab seemed to have successfully flattened the curve in early May after hitting a peak of over 400 cases on May 2. It managed to keep the daily increase under 50 for almost a month. However, Punjab has witnessed 80 new cases on each of the past two days, indicating a risk of another outbreak. The state has 2,887 confirmed cases, of which only 569 are active at present. Death toll stands at 59.