Surge in Covid-19 cases, but Maharashtra report looks at the silver lining

MUMBAI: The number of Covid-19 positive cases across the country surged this week, but figures released by the Maharashtra Health Department suggested India's curve was not as steep as that of the United States or other badly hit countries.

The data showed that while in the first week India had three cases, US had five, Italy two and Spain one; by the 8th week India's cases were over 725, the US reached 1678 cases (it has currently the highest number of cases at more than 86,000) Italy had 47021 and Spain 81021 cases.

That looked reassuring, but the department report did not shed light on whether this relatively low spread of coronavirus was due to low rate of testing in India, or due to better control over local transmissions, or due to any other reason.

The report also showed that the biggest chunk (36%) of positve cases in Maharashtra - which along with Kerala is the worst hit - were confirmed in the age group of 31-40, the second largest (27%) in the age group 41-50, and the third (26%) in the age group 21-30.

This was collated from a total figure of 134 available on Friday morning, and did not in any way indicate any particular order od susceptibilty.

Overall the number of men infected -- 68% -- was twice as much as the women. The largest number of cases were returnees from the UAE, while the second largest number of carriers had a travel history to the US.

In Maharashtra, Mumbai has the maximum with 57 cases, followed by Pune- Pimpri region with 32 cases, while Sangli comes third with 12 cases. By late evening however Sangli currently has 23 cases most of them from a single famlly that returned from Saudi Arabia.