Covid infection rate at three-month high in Haryana

Sushil Manav

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, March 30

With cases showing an upward trajectory in the past weeks, the R Naught value — a mathematical term that indicates the contagiousness of an infection — of Covid-19 in Haryana has reached the number where it stood in the month of December.

‘R naught’, a Key parameter

R0, pronounced “R naught”, indicates how contagious a disease is. It’s also referred to as the reproduction number. As an infection is transmitted to new people, it reproduces itself. R0 tells the average number of people who will contract a contagious disease from one person with that disease.

Not only this, even the daily positivity rate in the state is at a four-month high, and is 40 per cent higher than commutative positivity rate of Haryana.

R0, pronounced “R naught”, indicates how contagious an infectious disease is. It’s also referred to as the reproduction number. As an infection is transmitted to new people, it reproduces itself.

R0 tells the average number of people who will contract a contagious disease from one person with that disease.

According to sources in the Haryana Health Department, the R0 value of Covid-19 in the state stood at 1.05 on Sunday, which is the highest since the first week of December when it stood at 1.06.

The state witnessed the peak of R0 at 1.35 in September last year after which it came down to 1.10 by mid-October only to go up to 1.18 in mid-November.

During the months of January and February this year when the infection was at its lowest, the state witnessed an R0 between 1 and 1.01, but the value started rising again in March as the cases started rising.

Even the daily positivity rate in Haryana has moved up as it was recorded as 6.4 per cent on Sunday against the cumulative positivity rate of 4.6 per cent in the state.

Haryana administered 1.63 lakh doses of vaccine on Tuesday under a mega vaccination drive.