NEW DELHI: In states like Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, and a few others, roughly 80% of the active Covid-19 cases are asymptomatic, according to data collated by TOI. However, seven large states – including Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Punjab – and all of those in the North-east have recorded zero asymptomatic cases.
This suggests that numbers for the ‘low-to-zero’ category may be grossly understated and makes comparison of number of cases in different states meaningless, say epidemiologists. If these states, where asymptomatic cases recorded were very few or zero, had the same proportion of asymptomatic cases as states like Maharashtra or TN, the total number of positive cases in the country could go up by over 6,000, taking the total to well over 21,000.
Then there are states like Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, for which there was no data available on symptomatic and asymptomatic cases. If these too have primarily asymptomatic cases, the total number would get pushed even further up.
While the exact number may be a matter of deba