I have been doing Data Analytics Studies on the Coronavirus Pandemic for 40 days. The graph here has data of 25 countries, which together had 2,267,398 COVID-19 cases as of 11:00 am UTC/GMT (4:30 pm IST) yesterday, which was 85.3% of all 2,656,622 cases worldwide, and therefore a good reference sample.
Almost every day, I see several newspaper or TV reports trying to prove that India is far less affected by Coronavirus than many other countries, especially in the Western world. I also see reports of how our testing has increased 24 times or 33 times.
I have no doubt that all of this is Modi government propaganda. Let us see how much of it is actually true.
If you look at the graph, yes, it is right that, of the 25 countries, India (with 15.8 cases per million around 24 hours back) has fewer cases than all countries except Nigeria. But don’t miss out on the fact that India has done less tests per million (366) than all countries than Indonesia (221), Bangladesh (221) and Nigeria (40).
Surely, India cannot be expected to have the same “Infection Rate” (number of cases per million) as a Spain (4,558) or a USA (2,580) or a Canada (1,074) or even a Saudi Arabia (373), when we have only done 366 tests per million.
The correlation between Infection Rate (black towers in the graph) and Testing Rate (green towers) is quite clear by looking at the graph. Yes, there is no doubt that India has managed the disease well by imposing a lockdown quite early. But doing just 30,000 to 35,000 tests per day is not really the answer for a country with 1.366 billion people. To catch up with the average 14,652 tests/million done by the Top 20 countries in terms of Testing Rate, which are also doing an average of 688 new tests per million daily, we need to do 163,356 TESTS PER DAY FOR THE NEXT 120 DAYS. Can we do it?
Mortality Rates in 28 Countries
Recoveries Vs. Deaths in Top 20 Countries
New York Crosses Quarter Million Cases
IN INDIA, SUNami RISES IN THE WEST, SETS IN THE EAST
Which Countries have the Highest Growth in Deaths?
LATEST UPDATES (at 11:00 am UTC):
- The world has crossed 2.745 million cases
- The global death toll is over 191,800
- India has reached 23,252 cases and 727 deaths as per covid19india.org
- India’s Maharashtra State, with 6,427 cases, would have ranked No.44 in the world if it were a country
- Turkey became the 7th country to cross 100,000 cases and Brazil the 11th to cross 50,000 cases
- 6 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)
- 21 countries have crossed 15,000 cases (up from 16 on April 16)
- 32 countries have crossed 10,000 cases (up from 23 on April 16)
- 38 countries have crossed 7,500 cases (up from 26 on April 16)
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46 countries have crossed 5,000 cases (up from 20 on April 16)
- USA became the first country to cross 50,000 deaths
- 5 countries have 15,000+ deaths (up from just 1 on April 3)
- 11 countries have 3000+ deaths (up from 7 on April 3)
- 16 countries have 1000+ deaths (up from 10 on April 3)
- 25 countries have 500+ deaths (up from 16 on April 16)
Coronavirus Cases in India :
1) In terms of total number of tests done per million people India is at the bottom of the list. This MAY BE because of abnormally large population w.r.t other countries. Also with progressing day, total number of tests will increase, even if the rate of tests is not increased or even if the rate of tests is decresed.
2) Data Analytics on ” how many tests conducted for every positive case obtained” will give a good comaparison. High value would mean one of the two things : 1) The country is doing large number of tests relative to others 2) The country is targeting wrong set of people to test i.e. ‘contact tracing’ etc is faulty, and needs improvements
Further to my above comment , Pls note that by using data from worldometer , following observations are noted :
1) Among countries with more than 10000 positive cases, the positivity rate of only three countries in the world is better than India –these are – South Korea, Russia and Poland.
2) India’s positivity rate is 4.2%.
3) WHO recommends all countries to increase testing in case their rate is more than 10%, as they consider number of tests to be sufficient in case the rate is less than 10%.
4) For India, it is too early to celebrate or lower guards till the battle against COVID is won decisively. ALL INDIANS should help in which ever way they can in this fight, and should be on look out, that their posts should not be based on wrong interpretation of correct data.
Please see my latest post on Positivity Rates
I have read the post on Positivity Rate. Appreciate your promptnes.
I had posted on Positivity Rate on 2 earlier occasions also. Apart from my Update on Daily & Weekly Growth Trends, which I do daily, I do posts on other COVID subjects once in 4-7 days.