Covid-19: R-value in India remains below 1 since September

Last updated on October 20th, 2021 at 04:44 am

India -A recent study has shown that the R-value of India, a number that shows how rapidly the Covid-19 infection is spreading, has remained well below 1 since September. This indicates the coronavirus infection rate is declining in the country that had witnessed a catastrophic second wave of a pandemic that stretched from March to May 2021.

The R number or Reproduction number refers to how many people one Covid-19 infected person can infect. In other words, how efficiently the coronavirus is spreading is suggested by the R-value. R-value lesser than 1 means that the virus is spreading very slowly. If R value is greater than 1 it means more people will get infected in subsequent rounds, indicating an ‘epidemic’ phase.

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Researchers at the Chennai-based Institute of Mathematical Sciences calculated the R-value of top 10 Indian states and found that the number was below 1 till October 18. But some cities are showing an increasing number of active cases. Kolkata has R-value over 1, attributed to the mass gatherings during the recently concluded Durga Puja, said Sitabhra Sinha, the researcher leading the study. Bengaluru also has an R-value of over 1 since mid-September, while the R values of Chennai, Pune, and Mumbai stand just below 1.

India’s R-value as calculated between September 25 and October 18, was 0.90. The R value between August 30 and September 3 was 1.11. It started declining since then with the R-value of 0.94 between September 4 and 7, 0.86 between September 11 and 15, 0.92 between September 14 and 19 and 0.87 between September 17 and 21.

According to the data of the Union Health Ministry, on Tuesday India recorded 13,058 new cases of Covid-19, which is the lowest in 231 days. The daily cases have stayed under 30,000 for 25 consecutive days now.