INDIA’S COVID-19 CASES TOP 9 MILLION

Fri 20 November 2020:

India’s coronavirus cases crossed the 9 million mark early Friday after it recorded over 45,000 new infections, Health Ministry figures show.

According to a Health Ministry update, the number of confirmed cases in the country now stands at over 9 million. Some 584 deaths were registered in the last 24 hours, taking the total to 132,162.

India is currently witnessing a steady decline in cases, with the country reporting less than 50,000 daily new infections over the last 13 days.

As the country on Friday surpassed the grim milestone of 9 million total infections, the official daily numbers appear to show a marked slowdown in the spread of the disease. Once poised to overtake the U.S. as the nation with the highest caseload, India for weeks has been reporting fewer than 50,000 new cases a day, while infections are skyrocketing across America.

Rather than showing India is gaining control over Covid-19, the slowing momentum may largely reflect spotty testing levels and a heavy reliance on questionable kits.

Daily testing in the country of 1.4 billion people has picked up since the early days of the pandemic — currently at about 1 million — but it’s still much lower than most countries with high infections. Just as significant, nearly half come from less-reliable quick antigen tests, which can report false negatives as much as 50% of the time.

The result is that India’s Covid-19 cases are likely much higher than the national numbers. Health experts fear new infection waves as the country gathers to celebrate a season of weddings and Hindu festivals amid a smoggy winter in the densely populated north.

Rapid antigen tests “are not very reliable, not sensitive and the patients are not getting treatment at all,” said Harjit Singh Bhatti, president of the Progressive Medicos & Scientists Forum who has been working on the front lines in a suburban Delhi hospital since the epidemic began. “The coming months will be very dangerous.”

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