Karnataka Covid-19 trajectory worse than Tamil Nadu’s

To analyse the pace of the outbreak in states, HT looked at Covid-19 case data from 15 states that have over 25,000 confirmed Covid-19 cases as of Monday.

Karnataka’s trajectory of coronavirus disease (Covid-19) cases is on a path much worse than Tamil Nadu and Delhi’s, two of the countries hot spots, while Andhra Pradesh seems set to soar past the Capital’s tally soon, according to data analysed by HT.

Commuters wait for public transport. (HT file photo)

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To analyse the pace of the outbreak in states, HT looked at Covid-19 case data from 15 states that have over 25,000 confirmed Covid-19 cases as of Monday. In order to keep the starting point of each state uniform, Day 1 was taken as the day the state reported its 1,000th Covid-19 case (see chart). This allows a comparison of the case trajectory in different states which saw outbreaks expand over varying time periods.

The most dangerous path traversed appears to be that of Karnataka, which on Monday crossed 100,000 total cases. In 74 days since its 1,000th case, the state has 101,465 confirmed cases — 30,000 cases more than Delhi and Tamil Nadu in the same time period. Tamil Nadu and Delhi, the second and third worst-hit regions in the country after Maharashtra, had 67,468 and 66,602 cases respectively by Day 74.

Andhra Pradesh, the state with the second highest number of new cases in the past week (after Maharashtra), is also charting a trajectory that has seen a near-vertical rise in the last two weeks. Among the states analysed, only one state (Telangana with 4,737 cases) had fewer cases than Andhra Pradesh (5,636) on Day 50. By Day 94, the state had become the fourth worst-hit region in the country after the Big Three – Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Delhi.

The trajectory of Assam also comes as a surprise. Although the total numbers remain relatively low (32,228 cases), the state has reached this level in only two months since the day it reported its first thousand cases. Only Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka have had more cases by Day 60. Even Delhi had only 31,309 cases at this point.

West Bengal is another state with a fast-increasing caseload. It has over 60,000 cases in 85 days since its 1000th case. Only the big three and Karnataka have had more cases in that time.

Delhi, meanwhile, is the only state that has a relatively flat curve compared to others. While the Capital was very close to Tamil Nadu’s trajectory by Day 75 (70,977 cases against Tamil Nadu’s 70,390), since then, it has managed to break apart – there’s a 90,000-case gap between the two as of Day 107.

Gujarat also has a relatively flat curve in the past two months, but its numbers should be noted with a caveat about its low testing rate – 9,447 samples tested per million against the national average of 13,007.