I have been doing Data Analytics Studies on the Coronavirus Pandemic for 34 days. The 28 countries chosen for this Study are because they have either reported the highest number of cases, or they are amongst the most populated nations on earth – that is why Bangladesh, Nigeria and Vietnam are part of the Study.
The Table with data from the chosen 28 countries comprises 1,977,615 COVID-19 cases (up 2.82% from 1,923,356 yesterday), which is 87.4% of the total 2,262,799 cases (up 3.09% from 2,195,057 yesterday) reported worldwide at 10:00 am UTC/GMT today, and is therefore more than a good reference sample.
Look at the second last column in the Table, titled “Positivity Rate“. I had referred to the same statistic as “Infection Rate” in many of my earlier posts, but have now changed it to Positivity Rate as the Government of India refers to it as such. Basically, it refers to the percentage of people tested positive for COVID-19 out of the total number tested.
As Testing Data is not available anywhere for China (surprised?), I have ignored China from my Analysis. Further, if we ignore Vietnam and Nigeria, as there are doubts about data from these countries being reliable, the Average Positivity Rate for the remaining 25 countries is 25%. Then how is India’s Positivity rate only 4.4%?
Bangladesh’s Positivity Rate is 2.3 times that of India and Pakistan’s 1.84 times. Sure, Egypt, Thailand, Russia and South Korea also have low Positivity Rates, but are the first three ‘true’ democracies?
The government cannot take credit for a low Positivity Rate, as it has nothing to do with precautionary measures such as lockdown. The government has been taking credit for overall low numbers in India compared to most Western countries, bit even this is wrong, as India ranks at No.24 out of 27 countries (excluding China) in terms of number of tests conducted per million people.
I urge Prime Minister Narendra Modi to look at the very important issue of whether our testing protocols or reporting protocols (or both) are faulty. If overconfidence leads us to believe that we are doing better than the rest of the world, we will have only ourselves to blame if the situation turns into a disaster.
See Daily Update on Worldwide Growth of Coronavirus
India 17th Nation with 15,000 COVID19 Cases
See Post on Highest Growth in Deaths
LATEST UPDATES (at 4:30 pm UTC):
- The world has crossed 2.287 million cases
- The global death toll is over 157,400
- India has reached 15,536 cases and 519 deaths as per covid19india.org
- 5 countries have crossed 125,000 cases (up from 1 on April 3)
- 9 countries have crossed 75,000 cases (up from 4 on April 3)
- 15 countries have crossed 25,000 cases (up from 11 on April 3)
- 17 countries have crossed 15,000 cases (up from 12 on April 3)
- 23 countries have crossed 10,000 cases
- 30 countries have crossed 7,500 cases
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43 countries have crossed 5,000 cases (up from 20 on April 3)
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46 countries have crossed 4,000 cases (up from 25 on April 3)
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49 countries have crossed 3,000 cases (up from 27 on April 3)
- 5 countries have 15,000+ deaths (up from just 1 on April 3)
- 10 countries have 3000+ deaths (up from 7 on April 3)
- 15 countries have 1000+ deaths (up from 10 on April 3)
- 20 countries have 500+ deaths (up from 12 on April 3)
- 29 countries have 300+ deaths (up from 17 on April 3)