I have been doing Data Analytics Studies on the Coronavirus Pandemic for 48 days and have written 118 research-based blog posts on COVID-19 in these 48 days. The Table here has Testing Data for 25 countries, which together had a total of 2,934,235 COVID-19 cases as of a few minutes ago, or 85.7% of all 3,424,210 cases worldwide, and are therefore a good reference sample. China is not part of this Study as it does not report Testing Data.
Almost every day, I see many newspaper or TV reports saying that India has significantly improved testing for COVID-19. Though I have no doubt that this is Modi government propaganda, in this post I want to examine whether this supposedly ‘significantly improved‘ testing is enough?
It is obvious from the Table that USA is carrying out the most COVID-19 tests per day. But USA’s number translates to 935 tests per million per day (TPMPD), which is lower than Portugal’s 1,942 TPMPD or France’s 1,939 or Russia’s 1,587. In fact, 8 countries are doing more Tests PMPD than USA, the world’s largest economy.
In terms of absolute number of average daily tests in the last 4 days, India ranks No.6 with 77,636 tests per day. But if you consider the far more important statistic of TPMPD, India falls to the No.19 position, with only 57 TPMPD.
As per the IMF, Peru’s estimated per capita GDP in terms of Purchasing Power Parity, or “GDPPC (PPP)” is 1.71 times that of India. Peru is doing 14.81 times more Tests PMPD than India. Ecuador’s GDPPC (PPP) is 1.31 times that of India. Ecuador is doing 3.89 times more Tests PMPD than India. Pakistan’s GDPPC (PPP) is only 66.64% of India. Pakistan is doing 87.72% of the Tests PMPD that India is doing.
Doing 77,636 tests/day is not the answer for a country with 1.366 billion people. To catch up with the average 19,726 tests/million already done by the Top 17 countries in terms of Testing Rate (of the 25 in the Table), as I said in my previous post, India needs to do 216,885 Tests per Day for the next 120 days. This means enhancing our testing capacity another 2.8 times.
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Let’s Talk About Mortality Rates
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USA crosses 1 Million Cases, 8 American states cross 30,000
Which Countries have the Most Cases per Million Residents?
Is India Conducting Tests or Reporting Data Wrongly?
Why do Eastern & North-eastern India still have Low Covid-19 Cases?
Which Countries have the Highest Growth in Deaths?
LATEST UPDATES (at 3:15 pm UTC):
- The world has crossed 3.429 million cases
- The Top 23 countries have together crossed 3 million cases
- The global death toll is over 240,600
- India has reached 39,242 cases and 1,300 deaths as per covid19india.org
- In terms of rank in no. of cases, India is at No.16 (up from No.22 on April 14)
- India’s Maharashtra state, with 12,296 cases, would rank No.35 in the world if it were a country (up from No.44 on April 24)
- Russia overtook Turkey to reach No.7 rank in number of cases
- 6 countries have crossed 150,000 cases (up from 1 on April 8)
- 11 countries have crossed 75,000 cases (up from 4 on April 3)
- 20 countries have crossed 25,000 cases (up from 11 on April 3)
- 29 countries have crossed 15,000 cases (up from 16 on April 16)
- 37 countries have crossed 10,000 cases (up from 23 on April 16)
- 43 countries have crossed 7,500 cases (up from 26 on April 16)
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51 countries have crossed 5,000 cases (up from 20 on April 16)
- Spain became the 4th country to cross 25,000 deaths
- 5 countries have 20,000+ deaths (up from just 1 on April 3)
- 9 countries have 5000+ deaths (up from 5 on April 3)
- 14 countries have 2500+ deaths (up from 7 on April 3)
- 22 countries have 1000+ deaths (up from 10 on April 3)
- 27 countries have 500+ deaths (up from 16 on April 16)