Not New Delhi or Mumbai, the worst-hit city is Maha’s Nashik

Not New Delhi or Mumbai, the worst-hit city is Maha’s Nashik

Atul Thakur & Rema Nagarajan

17.04.2021 

The four cities with the highest number of fresh cases per million population over the past month are all in Maharashtra. Nashik at the top is followed by Nagpur, Pune and Mumbai, in that order.

Sandwiched between these cities and Delhi (at No. 9) are Lucknow, Bengaluru, Bhopal and Indore, with Patna rounding off the top 10. In absolute numbers, Mumbai has added 3.7 between March 16 and April 15, much higher than any other city, while Delhi seems like it is the next worst hit. Absolute numbers, however, can give a misleading picture as cities with much bigger populations would tend to have more cases. Calculating the number of cases per million makes it possible to compare cities with vastly different population sizes.

Almost all cities breached their earlier highest daily cases

Thus, Mumbai and Delhi with populations of more than 20 million each have had single-day highs over the past month of more than 19,400 and 14,300, respectively.

But again, when we look at these numbers in proportion to their population, Lucknow’s high of just under 4,500 on April 15 is more alarming.

TOI looked at the number of Covid infections over the last one month in the country’s 30 most populous urban agglomerations – contiguous urban areas like Greater Mumbai or Greater Kolkata – according to the UN’s World Urbanisation Prospects data.

For two of these, Hyderabad and Vijaywada, data wasn’t available. Almost all the cities have breached their previous highest daily cases during the course of this month and are continuing to witness a rise.

This is a serious worry for the health infrastructure in these cities, as there is no telling how far the cases would increase before they reach the peak. Mercifully, Mumbai, Pune, and Nashik are now seeing decreasing number of cases over the last few days indicating that these cities could be over their peak.