Buses are sanitised at Shivajinagar bus stand in Pune. Inter-district services of the Maharashtra State Road Transport Corporation (MSRTC) resumed on August 20, 2020. (Express Photo: Ashish Kale)

India Coronavirus Cases: With the daily growth rate continuing to slow down, the doubling time of novel Coronavirus cases in India has now dropped to 30 days. As on Thursday, there were 29.05 lakh confirmed cases in the country. The halfway stage was crossed on July 27, which means the present doubling has happened in 24 days. But the next doubling, at the current rate of growth, would happen only after 30 days, signalling a slowdown.

Doubling time is a function of the growth rate. Lower the growth, higher is the doubling time. It is one of the several metrics used to assess the pace at which the epidemic has been spreading in the population. At the start of the outbreak, in April and May, when the cases were rising rapidly, a doubling period of ten days was considered healthy for the stage of epidemic India was in at that time.

The ten-day doubling period was crossed in the first week of May, and after that there has been a steady elongation of this time.

Because of the different growth rates, the doubling times in states vary widely. Delhi has a doubling time of about 100 days, corresponding to the fact that its daily growth rate has been less than one per cent for a very long time now. Among the states with large caseloads, only Punjab, Kerala, Odisha and Jharkhand have doubling times less than 20 days right now.

New Coronavirus cases in India in August

The last two days has seen a slight jump in the number of cases being reported from Maharashtra. On Wednesday, the state reported more than 13,000 cases for the first time, and on Thursday, the number jumped even further and reached more than 14,600 cases. The state has a total of 6.43 lakh people who have so far been infected with the disease, out of which about 4.6 lakh, or 72 per cent, have recovered.

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Andhra Pradesh, growing at more than 9 per cent a day not too long ago, has continued to decelerate, and its daily growth rate has now fallen to three per cent. It is still contributing between 8,000 and 10,000 new cases every day, second only to Maharashtra. The state now has 3.25 lakh confirmed cases

There has been a marginal decline in the growth rates of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh as well. The only states that have been witnessing a rise in their growth rates right now are Punjab and Odisha. With a growth rate of 4.5 per cent a day, Punjab, in fact, is the fastest growing state right now, among those with large caseloads. The state seemed to have the epidemic under control in the months of June and July. Till the end of July, not more than 500 cases were discovered on any single day.

However, the situation has changed this month. For the last ten days, the state has been reporting more than 1,000 cases. For the last three day, 1,700-odd cases have been reported every day. The state has about 37,000 confirmed cases right now, and its current doubling time is just about 16 days.

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Top ten states with maximum caseload:

A little less than 69,000 new cases were detected on Thursday from across the country, taking the total number of cases in the country to 29.05 lakh. Close to three-quarters of the infected people, about 21.6 lakh, have already recovered from the disease, while the death count is now touching 55,000.

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