Covid-19 Pandemic- Pits and falls of major states of India

Covid-19, just like SARS and MERS before it, is a disease caused by corona virus and can lead to severe respiratory diseases in humans. With the outbreak of novel corona virus, WHO on 30 ^th January 2020 declared it a Public Health Emergency and further on 11 ^th March 2020, Covid-19 disease was declared a pandemic. India in the initial stages of the pandemic dealt with it in a very effective manner. With timely implementation of lockdown, India was able to contain the spread of Covid-19 to some extent. However with the recently announced Unlock 1.0, the SARS CoV-2 is expected to spread. This study aims to track and analyze the Covid-19 situation in major states that constitute of 70 percent of the total cases. Thus the states selected for the study are: Maharashtra, Delhi, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan. These are the states which had more than ten thousand Covid-19 patients as/on June 10 ^th 2020. The analysis period is from March 25 ^th to June 10 ^th and the data source is India’s Covid-19 tracker. To assess the previous and current Covid-19 situations in these states indicators such as Active rates, Recovery rate, Case fatality rate, Test positivity rate, tests per million, cases per million, test per confirmed case has been used. The study finds that although the absolute number of active cases may be rising, however it is showing a decreasing trend with an increase in recovery rates. With increasing number of Covid-19 cases, testing also has increased however not in the similar proportion and thus by developed nation standard we are lagging. With increasing TPR and cases per million, Delhi is well on its way to surpass even Mumbai which till now has proven to be worst hit in this pandemic. An interesting finding is that of test per confirmed case which shows that every 6 ^th person in Maharashtra and every 8 ^th in Delhi is showing positive result of Covid-19 test. Given such an increase and unlocked India, Delhi might soon enter into the third stage of community transmission where source of 50 percent or more cases would be unknown. There has been an increase in the Covid-19 related health infrastructure with the public-private partnership which involved both private hospitals and lab joining hands to battle Covid-19, however, affordability still remains an issue. If experts are to be believed, pandemic isn’t over because we’ve unlocked. The worst is yet to come as Covid-19 is predicted to peak in mid-July to August in India. Thus, it’d be advisable to not venture out unnecessarily just because restrictions have been lifted. Also, following the guidelines-hand-washing, avoiding public gathering, social distancing and covering nose and mouth has now become imperative.