Amid fears of another wave of Covid-19, India is witnessing gradual uptick in daily caseload in the past few days with 44,230 new cases reported on Friday. This has forced Covid hotspots States like Kerala  to impose lock down while movement restrictions are in place in some northeastern states where R-value-- which indicates the speed at which Covid-19 infection, is spreading in the country-- is more than one.

Kerala has been reporting over 22,000 cases for three days now and accounts for more than 37 per cent of India's active cases while three more States Karnataka and Tamil Nadu are also reporting a rise in cases.

However Kerala continues to have an R-value around 1.11.

When the second wave of the Covid-19 infection was at its peak, the overall R-value in the country was estimated to be 1.37 between March 9 to April 21

"Looks like it will remain in the top spot for the next couple of weeks. The Northeast continues to have a very bad situation with most states having R-value more than one," Sitabhra Sinha of the Institute of Mathematical Sciences, who is leading the team that analysed the R-value, was quoted as saying by a news agency.

The spike in infections in Kerala has forced the Centre to send a team for effective Covid-19 management there.

The government estimates that 67.6 per cent of the 1.35 billion population already have antibodies against the coronavirus. More than 45.55 crore vaccine doses have been administered in the country so far, according to the Ministry.