Andhra Pradesh pips Delhi to third spot in corona tally: Early success fizzles out

Andhra Pradesh is now the third-most COVID-19 affected state in India. The southern state has overtaken Delhi to reach the third spot in the coronavirus tally. Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu continue to occupy the top two positions.

Andhra Pradesh has risen to the third position on the back of three consecutive days of over 10,000 cases and Delhi presumably peaking since the last few days.

As per the latest COVID-19 India tracker data, Andhra Pradesh has 1,40,933 confirmed cases of coronavirus, of which 75,720 are active. Delhi, the state it has overtaken, now has 1,35,598 confirmed cases of coronavirus but only 10,705 active cases.

Andhra Pradesh had 14,595 cases on June 30. The number of confirmed cases has risen by over 865 per cent in just one month. The percentage increase in the total cases in June had been 308.70. The sudden spurt in coronavirus cases comes several weeks after the state was lauded for effectively containing the spread of the virus through door-to-door surveys, contact tracing, and zoning restrictions.

However, the state seems to have failed to sustain its early successes as the latest numbers suggest. The truncated state has seemingly fallen behind since the last month on a number of parameters.

The percentage of active cases has gone up from 32.73 at the end of May to 54.1 on July 31. However, for several days in July, the number of recoveries had been more than the active cases. But the surge in the last few days has undone the minor gains. Now, Andhra stands second in the list of worst active cases ratio -- if states with over 50,000 cases are considered.

Among the states with over 20,000 cases, it has the second-worst recovery ratio of 45.3 per cent. Only neighbouring Karnataka outranks Andhra with a ratio of around 40 per cent.

The fatalities have risen by a whopping 621 per cent in the last month. In June, the percentage rise in fatalities had been around 200 per cent. In fact, the state witnessed a sudden spurt in deaths in the middle of July before the death toll somewhat stabilised.

Andhra Pradesh's early success falling by the way side, interestingly, is in contrast with Delhi.

The number of coronavirus cases in June had risen by 319 per cent but only by around 55 per cent in July. In fact, June had turned out to be the worst month in terms of new coronavirus cases for Delhi.

The recovery rate, too, has improved from 66.79 per cent on June 30 to 89.2 per cent as on July 31. Among the most-affected states, Delhi has the best recovery ratio, and the lowest ratio of active cases -- 9.7 per cent.