Himachal, Punjab among five states with R number more than 1

New Delhi, August 10

Himachal Pradesh and Punjab are among five states with Covid-19 reproduction number of more than 1, the union health ministry said on Tuesday.

Reproduction number, or R number, is a way of rating the disease’s ability to spread. It’s an estimate of how many people the disease could infect on average. Scientists and health experts believe that an R number higher than one could mean that a disease could potentially spread faster in more vulnerable populations.

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Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, and Madhya Pradesh are the other states with R values of more than 1, the health ministry said at the press conference.

The increasing trend of reproduction number in some states is a cause for concern, although there is stabilisation in COVID-19 cases in the country, officials said at a joint press briefing on the pandemic, adding there are significant reasons to enforce pandemic control measures.

The government said Delta Plus variant of SARS-CoV-2 has been detected in 86 samples in India, including 34 in Maharashtra as on August 9.

The central government said 44 districts across 11 states and union territories were still reporting a weekly positivity rate of over 10 per cent.

An official said that 37 districts across nine states, including Kerala (11 districts) and Tamil Nadu (seven districts) were showing a rising trend in daily new COVID-19 cases over the last two weeks.

Kerala, the ministry said, had reported 51.51 per cent of the total Covid-19 cases reported in the last seven days.

The ministry’s caution comes despite the fact that India recorded 28,204 new coronavirus infections—the lowest in over five months—the health ministry's updated data showed on Tuesday. Active cases have now dropped to 3,88,508—the lowest figure since April.  

The death toll has climbed to 4,28,682 with 373 fresh fatalities, the data updated at 8 am showed.

—Agencies