India Reports Most New Covid Cases In 3 Weeks As R-Value Inches Up

India's Covid graph continued to show an upward trend as the country reported 44,230 new cases on Friday, the most in three weeks, amid fears of another wave of infections. The spread of the disease - which had eased off after a peak of 400,000 in in April and May - has forced at least one state to lock down while movement restrictions are in place in some northeastern states reporting a rise in infection rates.  The R-factor, which indicates the speed at which COVID-19 infection is spreading in the country, has inched up in the past week with Kerala and the Northeastern states reporting a steady rise in cases. Kerala has been reporting over 22,000 cases for three days now and accounts for more than 37 per cent of India's active cases, according to government sources. The southern state continues to have an R-value around 1.11. An R-value of 0.95 means, every 100 infected people on an average pass on the infection to 95 other individuals. If the R-value is lesser than one, it means the number of newly infected people is lower than the number of infected people in the preceding period which means the disease incidence is going down.