The R-value, which reflects the speed of the spread of the Covid pandemic, has dropped to below “1” in most States in India. However, it continues to hover above “1” in Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai and Bengaluru.
It dropped in almost all the regions to 0.92 by mid-September after spiralling over 1 in August-end, according to researchers. The R-value of Delhi and Pune are below 1.
The R-value was 1.17 at the end of August. It declined to 1.11 between September 4 and September 7 and since then it has remained under 1.
“The good news is that India’s R-value has continued to be less than 1, as is that of Kerala and Maharashtra, the two States having the highest number of active cases,” said Sitabhra Sinha of the Institute of Mathematical Sciences, Chennai. Sinha is leading a team of researchers who calculate the R-value.
According to the data, the R-value of Mumbai stands at 1.09, Chennai 1.11, Kolkata 1.04, Bengaluru 1.06. The Reproduction number or R refers to how many people an infected person infects on average. In other words, it tells how ‘efficiently’ a virus is spreading.
After the devastating second wave that saw hospitals and health infrastructure being overwhelmed by the patients infected with SARS-CoV2 coronavirus, the R-value started to decline. During the March-May period, thousands of people died due to the infection, while lakhs were infected.
The R-value value between September 4-7 was 0.94, 0.86 between September 11-15 and 0.92 between September 14-19.
According to the Health Ministry, the recovery rate currently stands at 97.75 per cent. The weekly positivity rate (2.08 per cent) has been less than 3 per cent for the last 88 days.
In the meantime, India recorded 26,115 fresh Covid cases, 13.6 per cent lower than Monday’s figures. The new infections took the country’s total caseload to over 22.9 crore. 252 deaths in the last 24 hours pushed the death count to 4,45,385.