Chhattisgarh, Punjab, Odisha lead slowdown in Covid-19 cases

NEW DELHI: In the last 30 days since Covid-19 cases peaked in India, the growth rate of infections has more than halved — from 92% in the month prior to September 18 to 42% since then, a drop of 50 percentage points.
The fall was brought about by declining numbers in the worst-affected regions as well as dramatic turnarounds in several other states. Chhattisgarh has shown the sharpest fall in cases between the two periods, with a percentage point (pp) drop of 291.The state still showed a 97% growth in cases during the past month, but this was a steep drop from the 388% rise in cases during the August 18 to September 18 period.
Other big states where the turnaround was the most dramatic were Punjab (drop of 132pp), Odisha (-109pp), UP (-78pp) and Haryana (-76pp). Among the four worst-hit states, Andhra had the sharpest drop in growth rate at -70pp.

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Andhra was followed by Karnataka (-56pp) and Maharashtra (-53pp), all sharper than the national average of -50pp. Tamil Nadu, however, a much more modest fall of -22pp. Kerala was the lone state to show acceleration in the growth rate between the two periods of nearly 7pp. The drop was modest in Delhi, where the difference in growth rates during the two 30-day periods was -16pp. Similarly, the fall in the growth rate was much below the national average in Rajasthan (-18pp) and Bihar (-27pp).
September 18 was kept as the cutoff date because cases had peaked in India a day before. Meanwhile, India reported 44,913 fresh cases on Monday, the lowest single-day tally in 90 days since July 21, when the count was below 39,000, as per data collated from state government. While Mondays see a drop in cases due to low testing and staff shortage during the weekend.
Maharashtra added 5,984 cases on Monday, its lowest in 104 days, thanks to the “weekend effect”. Mumbai too saw the addition of 1,234 positive cases, its lowest in 48 days. Andhra Pradesh reported 2,918 new Covid-19 cases on Monday, taking the cumulative caseload to 7,86,050, while the toll jumped to 6,453 after 24 more people died. This is the lowest single-day case count in the last three months. Gujarat added 996 new Covid-19 cases, taking its total number to 1.6 lakh so far.