Covid 2.0: Positivity rate drops below 5% in over half of India’s districts

New Covid-19 cases have dropped below the one lakh-mark for the first time in over two months.

New Covid-19 cases have dropped below the one lakh-mark for the first time in over two months. This has been accompanied by a significant drop in the rate of transmission in 421 districts, the latest health ministry data shows. Contrast this to the situation nearly a month ago when India’s daily coronavirus tally stood at 4.14 lakh. On May 12, we chanced upon data that was equally disturbing. It showed that as many as 294 districts in the country had positivity rates of 20 per cent and more. And 526 districts had positivity rates above ten per cent. Shockingly, 12 districts had positivity rates above 50 per cent. Test Positivity Rate (TPR) is the proportion of confirmed cases out of all the tests performed. A higher rate means the infection is spreading at a faster clip. And TPR above 50 per cent means one out of every two tests done was turning out to be a case of confirmed infection.