E-Paper
Pune moves closer to 10k mark, but city’s doubling rate and R naught improves
The relative fall in the spread of the virus in the city comes when Pune is inching closer to the 10,000 mark of Covid-19 positive cases.
The doubling rate of Covid-19 (coronavirus) positive cases in the city has improved to 19 days, as compared to five days on April 11 and 14 days on May 21, according to Pune Municipal Corporation data.
With the slowing of the doubling rate, Pune’s R-naught (RO), which in April was above four, has also come down to 0.9, according to the civic body data. RO indicates how contagious the infectious disease is. The RO at 0.9 now means that one person is likely to infect one person and for every new case of Covid-19 reported, one person is declared cured and is discharged.
The relative fall in the spread of the virus in the city comes when Pune is inching closer to the 10,000 mark of Covid-19 positive cases.
According to Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) as of Saturday, the city’s progressive positive cases of Covid-19 stood at 9,336 with 254 cases reported within 24 hours on Saturday.
A senior health official from the district health office, said, “If the R- naught is around four or five it means that there is a serious issue which needs to be taken care of while the doubling rate has to be more than before. R-naught and doubling rate are inversely proportional. There are many factors which help make policy decisions includes these two numbers.”
Shekhar Gaikwad, PMC commissioner, said, “Doubling rate is broad-based since it is about the progressive number of cases which will keep on increasing, however, the R-naught is more important since it denotes that the current status has come below one, which is a good sign for the city.”
“We are preparing for the worst and so the number of cases we estimated earlier is not the same now. We will work on extending the doubling rate further and decreasing the R-naught,” said Gaikwad.
R-naught, which is calculated by the state health department, helps make policy decisions like the number of minimum contacts to be traced for each case, easing restrictions in any area and emphases on social distancing. R-naught figure can also be calculated at a local level to determine the lockdown restrictions and strict implementation of lockdown.
The doubling rate helps project the number of cases to be expected in the future if the reported cases continue to remain steady and also the health infrastructure readiness of the civic body and other government authorities. The doubling rate of the city has been improving consistently. The number of cases on May 7 May was 2,146 which doubled to 4,107 cases as of May 21, while from May 22 May to June 9 the number of cases rose from 4,107 to 8,205 taking the doubling rate to 19 days.
