Coronavirus Live Updates: Active Covid-19 cases record a spike in India; triggers fresh concerns over fourth wave

Coronavirus Pandemic April 21 Live Updates: According to the official data shared by the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare on Thursday morning, India recorded a single-day rise of 2,380 new Covid-19 infections. Active Coronavirus cases in the country have increased to 13,433. The number of deaths due to Covid increased to 56 in the last 24 hours. The Ministry said that the active cases comprise 0.03 per cent of the total infections, while the national COVID-19 recovery rate remained at 98.76 per cent.

India’s effective reproduction number (R-value) for Covid-19 increased to over 1 for the first time since mid-January. R-value is an indicator of how quickly a disease is spreading in the population. Needless to say, this has triggered a lot of fear and anxiety among people, especially due to the possibility of fourth Covid wave. The R-value has been increasing steadily for the past week. It was 1.07 for April 12-18, according to Sitabhra Sinha, a researcher from Chennai’s Institute of Mathematical Sciences who has been tracking the country’s R-value since the beginning of the pandemic, reported IE. The R-value was 0.93 the previous week.

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