The government on Tuesday said India's reproductive number, or R-factor, which denotes the spread of Covid-19 is more than one in eight states, including Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Tamil Nadu and Kerala.
Reproduction or reproduction number is a measure that highlights the number of people a coronavirus positive person infects, thereby reflecting the severity of its spread. A number of one or below one indicates a slowly spreading virus while any number above 1 indicates a rapid spread.
An official said the pandemic is far from over, and the second wave, as far as India is concerned, is still not over. The daily new Covid-19 cases being reported across the world are still high as more than 4.7 lakh infections are being recorded everyday, the official added.
The government said 44 districts across 12 states and Union Territories reported more than 10 per cent weekly Covid-19 positivity rate in the week ending August 2.
"Delta variant is a dominant problem. The pandemic is still raging and the second wave is persisting in our own country," Dr VK Paul, who heads the government's Covid task force, was quoted as saying by ndtv.com.
"Please remember that R number should be 0.6 or below. If it has gone over 1, it shows it is a significant problem and the virus wants to spread," he added.
Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra are the only states showing a downward trajectory, while the R-value in states like Bengal, Nagaland, Haryana, Goa, Delhi and Jharkhand stands at 1.
"Whenever R number is above one, it means that the case trajectory is increasing and it needs to be controlled," said Lav Agarwal, joint secretary of the Union health ministry.
The Centre said that 18 districts from six states, including Kerala, Maharashtra, Manipur and Arunachal Pradesh, reported an increasing trend in daily new Covid cases in last four weeks.
It added that in the last week, 49.85 per cent of the total coronavirus cases were reported from Kerala.
The government also said that the total number of Covid-19 vaccine doses administered in July is more than double that in May.
The total number of Covid vaccine doses administered so far as part of the nationwide vaccination drive has reached 47.85 crore.
India's Covid-19 tally climbed to 3,17,26,507 on Tuesday with 30,549 more people testing positive for the disease while the active caseload declined after six days, according to the health ministry data.
The death toll climbed to 4,25,195 with 422 fresh fatalities, the data updated at 8 am showed.
