India reports 41,649 new covid cases, Kerala biggest contributor

New Delhi, July 31: With a single-day rise of 41,649 cases, India's COVID-19 tally climbed to 3,16,13,993 on Saturday, while the death toll due to the viral disease shot up to 4,23,810 with 593 more people succumbing to it, the Union health ministry said.

The number of active coronavirus cases in the country registered an increase for the fourth consecutive day, according to the ministry's data updated at 8 am.

The number of active cases has gone up to 4,08,920. The number of people who have recuperated from the disease stood at 3,07,81,263.

Top 5 states

With 20,772 cases, Kerala was the biggest contributor, followed by Maharashtra with 6,600 cases, Andhra Pradesh with 2,068 cases, Tamil Nadu with 1,947 cases and Karnataka with 1,890 cases.

These 5 states accounte for 79.9 per cent of the new Covid cases. While Kerala alone responsible for 49.87% of the total cases.

Some of the worst-hit districts were Malappuram (3,670 cases), Kozhikode (2,470), Ernakulam (2,306), Thrissur (2,287), Palakkad (2,070), Kollam (1,415), Alappuzha (1,214), Kannur (1,123), Thiruvananthapuram (1,082), and Kottayam (1030).

The Centre has deputed a high-level multidisciplinary team to Kerala after seeing a continuous rise in COVID-19 daily cases.

India's R-value climbing

The R-factor, which indicates the speed at which Covid-19 infection is spreading in the country, is climbing steadily with Kerala and the northeastern states occupying the top spots, fuelling worries about the pandemic rearing its head again.

When the second wave of the Covid-19 infection was at its peak, the overall R-value in the country was estimated to be 1.37 between March 9 to April 21. It declined to 1.18 between April 24 and May 1 and then to 1.1 between April 29 and May 7, according to the analysis.

Between May 9 and 11, the R-value was estimated to be around 0.98. It dropped to 0.82 between May 14 and May 30 and further to 0.78 from May 15 to June 26. The R-value however rose to 0.88 from June 20 to July 7 and then to 0.95 from July 3-22.

An R-value of 0.95 means, every 100 infected people on an average pass on the infection to 95 other individuals. If the R-value is lesser than 1, it means the number of newly infected people are lower than the number of infected people in the preceding period, which means the disease incidence is going down.

The smaller the value of R is, the faster the disease is on the decline. Conversely, if R is greater than 1, the number of infected people is increasing in each round-technically, this is what is called the epidemic phase.

The bigger the number is than one, the faster the rate of spreading of the disease in the population.

Kerala has the highest number of active cases and continues to have an R-value around 1.11.

India's COVID-19 tally had crossed the 20-lakh mark on August 7 last year, 30-lakh mark on August 23, 40-lakh mark on September 5 and 50-lakh mark on September 16.

It went past 60 lakh on September 28 last year, 70 lakh on October 11, 80 lakh on October 29, 90 lakh on November 20 and the one-crore mark on December 19.

The country crossed the grim milestone of two crore COVID-19 cases on May 4 this year and the three-crore mark on June 23.