India recorded 32,498 fresh cases on 15th July with 615 fatalities, making the total number of cases in the country go up to 968,835. Till then, a total number of 24,860 people succumbed to the virus.
With a recovery rate of 63.24%, India has more than 6 lakh patients recovered. The total number of recoveries in the 15-days period of July was more than the entire month of June.
Early this month, World Health Organisation chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus pointed out that over half of all cases recorded since the novel coronavirus first emerged in China late last year were registered in the month of June, making it the worst month in terms of new infections reported. But the first 15 days of July are painting a different picture.
In June alone, India recorded 4,00,431 positive cases. With the exponential rise of cases in the last fortnight, the total number of cases registered till mid-July have already reached close to the whole number of cases registered in June.
A total of 3,83,361 cases were reported in the first 15 days of July. While nearly 12,000 deaths were recorded in June, the first fortnight of July has seen 7,468 casualties.
According to the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), 3,26,826 samples were tested. Till 15th of July, India had tested a total number of 1,27,39,490 samples. Clearly India has ramped up its number of tests every day. In the last few weeks, India has been testing between 2 lakh to 2.8 lakh samples every day.
While the rise in numbers is a cause of concern, the positivity rates remain between 9-10%, despite the sample size increasing gradually.
Delhi has been reporting more recoveries than new infections from last one week. On Wednesday, 3,982 people were reported to have recovered and 2,033 new infections were reported.
A difference of almost 2000. If the trend holds on for 2 weeks, it would indicate that the disease has peaked. But we still have another fortnight to go in July. Let’s see how things unfold.