Kerala reels under high caseload, India records over 2 lakh COVID-19 cases this week

This week India recorded more than 40,000 COVID-19 cases everyday, except Tuesday when the country saw a slight dip with 30,941 cases of new infections. 

New Delhi: At a time when COVID-19 cases in other parts of the country have declined after the ravaging second wave of coronavirus, Kerala continues to contribute a majority of infections to India`s fresh daily count for the past few weeks.  India on Saturday recorded 2,618 new COVID-19 cases and 330 deaths in the last 24 hours, out of which Kerala accounted for nearly 70 percent of the new infections and a third of deaths. The surge in COVID-19 infections in the state comes a week after it celebrated its biggest festival, Onam.  Collectively, this week, India added more than 208,000 COVID-19 cases in a span of five days starting Monday. As the daily tally increases steadily, it has been noted that the COVID-19 R-value too has risen sharply. According to the researchers at the Institute of Mathematical Sciences, Chennai, the R-value calculated between August 14-17 was 0.89 but between August 24-29 it stood at 1.17.