Ten weeks after India detected its first COVID-19 case, five states/union territories--Manipur, Kerala, Chhattisghar, Ladakh, Goa and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands--have reported more recovered cases than active.

Goa, which has a total of seven confirmed COVID-19 cases, has reported one recovery since 5 p.m. on April 16. It now has one active case, and Ladakh, with 18 cases--and four recoveries reported since last evening--now has 4 active cases.

By 9 p.m. on April 16, India had tested 302,956 samples from 286,714 people. Of these, 12,581 individuals (4.2%) have been confirmed positive, as per the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR). On April 16, 27,256 samples were tested, of which 1,206 (4.4%) came out positive for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.

Meanwhile, Maharashtra (3,205) has become the first state to report more than 3,000 COVID-19 cases, as per the health ministry's 8 a.m. update on April 17. The number of cases in the state has more than doubled in six days since April 11, when it had a total of 1,574 confirmed cases. It has reported 286 new cases since 5 p.m. on April 16.

Mumbai has reported 2,043 #COVID19 cases--more than any other state--as per an April 16 update from the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation. It has 64% of Maharashtra's total cases & 60% deaths in the state.

Watch this video for how doctors in Mumbai and Delhi are coping with the pandemic:

Thus far, nearly 2.2 million COVID-19 cases have been reported globally and a quarter of those have recovered, with China reporting the most recoveries (78,445), as per Apr 17 data from Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center data.

At the same time, the Chinese city of Wuhan in the Hubei province, where the coronavirus first emerged, raised its death toll by 50% on April 17, revealing that the city had been much worse hit than previously reported, the news agency AFP has reported. The additional deaths were earlier “mistakenly reported” or missed, AFP quoted a Chinese statement as saying.

This has once again put the spotlight on a potential under-reporting and under-detection of cases around the world, not only because many patients remain asymptomatic but also because few countries can afford to test to dead to determine if they had COVID-19.

Nearly 7% of the patients worldwide have died so far, as per the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center. India is currently reporting a much lower proportion at 3.3%.

(Compiled by Shreehari Paliath)

IndiaSpend Team