India's pandemic picture looks slightly disproportionate of late as the trend which seemed like flattening is reversing again. The country's Covid-19 count breached the 1 lakh mark on Tuesday. With a per day average of over 5000 plus novel coronavirus cases since then, the total tally of COVID infections in India has gone up to 1,12,359 as on May 21. The bending fact here is the country has consistently registered a growth rate above 5% in the last few days. India's doubling rate of active cases has come down to 19 days while that of rising cases is hovering around 13 days.
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The recovery rate, however, has kept on increasing with each passing day. A total of 45,300 patients have been cured of the disease in India indicating that from 25.6% on May 1, the cure rate has jumped to 40.32% on May 21. Of the total positives, 63,624 are active cases and 3,435 fatalities.
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As on May 20, death rate per million people is highest in Gujarat (11.75%) followed by Maharashtra (11.39) and Delhi with 7.96%.
Reports suggest that the spread of infection in India is slower when compared to the US, Italy Spain and other countries. While it took 25 days in the US for 100 to 1 lakh jump, Germany, Italy, Spain, UK, France all recorded the 0.1 million mark in less than 42 days. India, on the other hand, managed to stretch it to 64 days.
A recent analysis estimates that there are more than 30 strains of the virus spread across the globe at present. This means that it has already mutated 30 times, roughly one mutation every two weeks. Experts are of the opinion that more studies are needed to determine the effects of these mutations on the virulence and transmissibility of n-CoV.
Now let's have a look at the story in Odisha which has 1103 cases. The State has tested around 1,08,432 samples, which means one in every 98 sample tests positive. While active cases stand at 703, 393 have recovered and 7 have succumbed. The State stands 4th from bottom with a death rate of 0.14% per million people. Ganjam leads the COVID chart with 317 positive cases, followed by Jajpur with 179, Balasore 122, Bhadrak 95 and Khurda 71. As on today, around 2,03,220 (2 lakh 3 thousand two twenty) migrants have returned to the State since May 3 in over 70 Shramik Special trains and buses facilitated by the government.
In another development, Union Civil Aviation Minister, Hardeep Singh Puri informed that 'Domestic civil aviation operations will recommence in a calibrated manner from May 25th and accordingly all airports & air carriers are being informed to be ready for operations. Subsequently, the Home Ministry too deleted 'domestic air travel of passengers' from the list of prohibited activities in lockdown guidelines. The Airport Authority of India has also released a Standard Operating Procedure for State governments and public ahead of the recommencement.
Meanwhile, Indian Railways in consultation with Ministry of Health & Family Welfare and MHA decided that train services on Indian Railways shall be partially restored from June. The Ministry informed that these trains will be fully reserved having both AC, non-AC classes while general coaches will have reserved seats for sitting.
Some of the trains running through Odisha which will resume operation from June 1 include:
- Bhubaneswar Mumbai Konark Express
- Falaknuma Express
- Puri New Delhi Purushottam Express
- Howrah Mumbai Mail
- Howrah Bhubaneswar Jan Shatabdi
- Howrah Barbil Jan Shatabdi
- Howrah Yeshwantpur Duronto
- Dhanbad-Alleppey Express
- Howrah Ahmedabad Express