Covid-19 continues to spread both nationwide and worldwide as India currently is the third-worst affected country (1.04 million cases), behind Brazil (2.04 million cases) and USA (3.77 million cases).
India’s first confirmed case was reported on January 30 in the southern state of Kerala. Over the course of February, known infections remained in the single digits largely due to a lack of testing.
Although some states like Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Kerala reported a spurt in coronavirus infections initially, they have now fallen further low on the tally with states like Telangana, Karnataka jumping higher. Karnataka (27000 reported cases) recently overtook Gujarat as the fourth worst-hit state in the country.
A massive chunk of India’s coronavirus load comes from the top affected cities – most in Maharashtra. At least half the 330,725 active cases in the country, as of Wednesday night, were reported from just 10 cities, with a third of all such cases coming from Maharashtra. Newer hotspots are also emerging in cities like Bengaluru and Hyderabad.
HT analysis revealed that metropolitan areas, urban centres, or city districts, are drastically more affected by the virus and account for a majority of active cases.
Delhi, the national capital is among the worst hit in the country. Although the total Covid-19 cases are over 1.1 lakh, the active cases in Delhi are fewer than many other badly-hit cities – over 17,000.
Mumbai has reported 1 lakh+ cases with active cases at 23,948. Thane is Maharashtra’s second-worst affected city with 71,000 confirmed cases and 36,468 active cases. Pune comes third with around 50,000 initial cases and a current tally of 29,583 active cases.
Hyderabad has nearly 99 per cent of cases reported, which over 30,000, are currently active. Tamil Nadu’s capital city Chennai has reported over 83,377 coronaviruses with 15,000 active cases. Gujarat’s Ahmedabad with 24000 cases till date has over 15 per cent of its total cases as active patients. Nearly 40 per cent of Kolkata’s coronavirus cases are active. The Bengal capital has reported over 10,000 cases.

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