Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Pune emerge as new urban Covid hotspots

NEW DELHI: Among India’s nine largest urban centres (with 5 million plus population), it is now Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Pune that are witnessing the most rapid rise in Covid cases while the earlier epicentres — Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai and Ahmedabad — are showing signs of the outbreak slowing down.

The city that has seen the highest rate of increase in cases is Bengaluru, where cases have increased at an average 12.9% per day in the past four weeks. The city has also seen a surge in deaths with fatalities growing at 8.9% per day for the same period.

When it comes to case fatality rate (deaths per 100 cases), Ahmedabad continues to top the list followed by Mumbai and Kolkata. Chennai has the highest density o