Pune and Mumbai are the top two districts in India in terms of active cases and number of deaths due to COVID-19, according to district level data from covid19india.org.
Further, more than half of all active cases in India of COVID-19 are concentrated in the top 15 districts. In terms of deaths, the top 15 districts in the country have nearly 40% of all deaths.
Maharashtra continues to be the epicentre of the pandemic in India in terms of the number of cases, primarily due to the rising cases in Pune and Mumbai Maharashtra has eight out of the top 15 districts in terms of active cases. Two districts in Chattisgarh - Durg and Raipur - too find themselves among the top 15. A district in Assam - Kamrup Metropolitan, is also present among the top 15. .
Together, they account for nearly 6.13 lakh of 11.95 lakh active cases (as of late April 12), at nearly 51.2%.
Among these districts, Durg has the most dismal recovery ratio of 67%. Nanded, Lucknow, Raipur and Nagpur are less than 80%. Mumbai is just above 80% at 80.6%.
Mumbai also has recorded the highest number of deaths in the country due to COVID with 12,023 deaths. Maharashtra has nine in the top 15 districts by deaths due to the pandemic. Delhi, two districts from West Bengal, Ahmedabad, Chennai and Bengaluru Urban also find themselves in the list.
These top 15 districts collectively account for just over 41% of all deaths in India, the data show.
How have the cases progressed?
Mumbai may have started off as the hotspot for the pandemic in India, but from October last year to as recently as early March, Pune and Bengaluru Urban occupied the top two spots in terms of total cases.
Only in early April did Mumbai overtake Bengaluru Urban in terms of total cases across India.
As India witnesses the second wave of the ongoing pandemic racing to becoming the country with the second highest number of cases in the world, Maharashtra still remains the state with the highest caseload, with three of the top five districts in India in terms of total case count being from the state.
As of April 13, four districts from Kerala, West Bengal's capital Kolkata and North 24 Parganas, Tamil Nadu's Chennai and Andhra Pradesh's East Godavari are also on the list.
Together, these 15 account for 38,55,502 cases (3.85 million) cases, accounting to 28.5% of all cases (Telengana not included since its district wise numbers are outdated, according to covid19india.org, but they have been included in the case count).
Pune and Mumbai top the charts when it comes to active cases in India.
However, Delhi continues to have the highest total caseload since the start of the pandemic.
India has 1,36,91,533 total cases,12,63,342 active cases and 1,71,101 deaths as per the website.
This figure is close to the official figure shared by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, that shows 1,36,89,453 cases, of which 12,64,698 are active and 171,058 deaths.
Note: All of these figures are as of at the time of publishing this story.