𝗛𝗮𝘀 𝗜𝗻𝗱𝗶𝗮 𝗳𝗹𝗮𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗻𝗲𝗱 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗖𝗼𝘃𝗶𝗱𝟭𝟵 𝗰𝘂𝗿𝘃𝗲 ?

To make any definitive claim one way or other we need to be certain that we are checking adequate number of population. Currently India is testing very low percentage of population compared to most leading countries and is increasing this number. If we are capturing large proportion of infected population then as testing increases then ratio of positives detected to number of tests should decrease. Also, roughly speaking, states with high testing should have low positives to tests ratio and states with low tests should have high ratio of positives to tests. The first does not seem to happening. Let us also have look at the later part of the statement. 


UP is testing 139 per million population and its positives ratio is 3.9%. 

For Maharashtra it is 626 and 6.3 %

Delhi - 1283 and 8.2 %

Gujarat - 462 and 6.4%

Rajasthan - 829 and 2.7%

Tamilnadu - 601 and 3.7%

MP - 341 and 6%

Kerala - 553 and 2.1 %

Clearly there is no correlation between testing density and positives/tests ratio. And hence it is inappropriate to make any claim based on these figures.

In spite of these we observe that positives to testing ratio in India is 4.7%. This is extremely low compared 10-25% observed in many western countries. Common sense suggests that if testing is low then as testing increases positives ratio should increase. That clearly is not happening. What could be happening.

It is important to note that India is testing patients with high degree of sysmtpoms (also if patient of respiratory disease dies then he/she is not tested posthumously to check if he had Covid). Symptoms of Covid19 are similar to many other respiratory infections and it is almost impossible to diagnose Covid19 without test results. Is it possible that Covid19 in India is getting mixed in other respiratory diseases ? Lets hav a quick look at that data

India population : 135 Cr

India death rate : 7.3 per thousand

Annual deaths : 9855000

monthly deaths : 821250

% deaths due to TB and respiratory infections: 7.6%
(these do not include non infectious respiratory diseases)

monthly deaths due to TB and respiratory infections: 62145

Consider death rate to be 0.5% for these infections
Monthly patients of TB and respiratiory infections: 1,24,83,000
Assume 20% go to doctor for treatment : 2496600
Number of these patient in one and half months: 37,44,900

We have tested 3,84,000.
That is about 10% of the total symptomatic population of non-Covid19 patients of respiratory infections. If we consider non-infectious diseases like asthma, which may show similar symptoms, then this percentage becomes even lower.

Bases on this data we can conjecture that until now Covid19 maybe getting covered up under huge number of already existing respiratory diseases. We really dont know how big it is. At present we can only say that it does not seem to have grown to size to affect existing large population of respiratory illnesses.


To really understand spread of Covid19 in India we need to either increase testing multifold or find out Covid19 symptoms those are different from other respiratory diseases.