Covid-19: Fewer people infected in rural, semi-urban India; more are dying

Infections in rural and urban areas are also gathering pace, but deaths are growing faster than urban centres

In its weekly press briefing on Wednesday, the government said that there were 146 districts across the country where the positivity rate—daily cases upon daily tests—is more than 15 per cent and 274 districts with a positivity rate between 5-15 per cent. So, nearly 56 per cent of the country’s districts have a positivity rate of over 5 per cent.

While the situation is grim in cities and urban districts—there is constant media coverage of how the administration is running out of criticl hospital supplies—a BS analysis shows that in rural and semi-urban India, at least in terms of deaths, the