Kerala, which is reeling under a surge of Covid-19 cases, underreports the least number of infections, while Bihar, on the other hand, underreports the highest number of infections, according to a report by The Logical Indian.
Quoting the latest ICMR serosurvey which said that all states have underreported cases, it mentioned that Kerala has an underreporting factor of six, which means that for each infection detected, six remain undetected. For Bihar, this figure stood at 134 – over 22 times higher than that of Kerala's.
The southern state has been seeing over 20,000 cases over the past week largely due to its high testing rate and has been known to detect cases better than other states in the country since the beginning of the pandemic.
The surge in cases has been driven by the Delta variant, a virologist had informed DH. Another factor for the surge is the state's low seroprevalence of 44 per cent, which is lower than the national average of 67.6 per cent.
Bihar, which has averaged 64 new cases in the past week, was in the news two months ago for a drastic revision of its death toll from under 5,500 to 9,429 after it added 3,951 verified fatalities on June 10.
The story added that Uttar Pradesh underreported one in 100 cases, while Maharashtra, which was hit hard by the pandemic earlier this year, underreported one in 12.
India on Monday reported 40,134 fresh Covid-19 infections, pushing its virus tally to 3,16,95,958, while the number of active cases recorded an increase for the sixth consecutive day.
Published 02 August 2021, 06:39 IST