Sukumar Ranganathan is the Editor-in-Chief of Hindustan Times. He is also a comic-book freak and an amateur birder.
Articles by R Sukumar
What can explain the mystery of China’s Covid-19 numbers?
One theory is that the Chinese have completely buried all inconvenient information related to the disease and its fallout within the country.
Updated on Jul 31, 2020 05:00 AM IST
Hindustan Times, New Delhi | R Sukumar
Covid-19: What you need to know today
India recorded 1.53 million coronavirus disease cases cumulatively till Tuesday evening, but almost a million of these (986,061) have recovered.
Updated on Jul 30, 2020 05:45 AM IST
Hindustan Times, New Delhi | R Sukumar
Covid-19: What you need to know today
All of us, individuals, organisations, even administrations, should do that (look to Google) now — when planning for our uncertain short-term (the next one year) future.
Updated on Jul 29, 2020 05:39 AM IST
Hindustan Times | R Sukumar
Covid-19: What you need to know today
India was locked down for 68 days between March 25 and May 31, although the second half of this period saw some activities being allowed in a restricted manner.
Updated on Jul 28, 2020 07:53 AM IST
Hindustan Times | R Sukumar
Covid-19: What you need to know today
Such molecular tests are highly accurate in identifying current infections of the coronavirus disease.
Updated on Jul 27, 2020 06:03 AM IST
Hindustan Times, New Delhi | R Sukumar
Covid-19: What you need to know today
In the month since June 24, India has added 63% of its total cases (1.28 million on Thursday night). It has added 51% of its total deaths (30,630) in this period.
Updated on Jul 25, 2020 05:45 AM IST
Hindustan Times, New Delhi | R Sukumar
Covid-19: What you need to know today
India has thus far carried out around 11,310 tests per million of the population. This number too has been increasing steadily; over the past week for instance, India carried out 333,697 tests a day on average.
Updated on Jul 24, 2020 01:57 AM IST
Hindustan Times, New Delhi | R Sukumar
Covid-19: What you need to know today
This column wondered sometime back whether there was a peak infection rate after which the spread of the disease started declining. If the Swedish study holds, it could mean that the prevalence or infection rate itself is perhaps much higher than what is measured using antibody tests.
Updated on Jul 23, 2020 03:14 AM IST
Hindustan Times, New Delhi | R Sukumar
Covid-19: What you need to know today
Vaccine development has traditionally been a risky business – not just because of the success rate, but also because the timelines involved (8-10 years) meant that developers were taking a big chance that the disease targeted by the vaccine would still be relevant (and a problem) a decade into the future.
Updated on Jul 22, 2020 06:32 AM IST
Hindustan Times, New Delhi | R Sukumar
Covid-19: What you need to know today
Irrespective of whatever else the numbers prove (or don’t), they clearly establish that: one, we seem to be getting better at saving lives (which, a previous instalment of this column wrote, was in evidence even globally) and two, the number of daily cases has been increasing.
Updated on Jul 21, 2020 03:26 AM IST
Hindustan Times, New Delhi | R Sukumar
Covid-19: What you need to know today
India registered 37,774 new cases of Covid-19 on Saturday, taking its total tally of infections to 1,076,479 (according to the Hindustan Times dashboard). Of this, 26,812 people have died and 677,565 have recovered — resulting in 372,102 active cases.
Updated on Jul 20, 2020 04:59 AM IST
Hindustan Times, New Delhi | R Sukumar
Covid-19: A million and a manifesto
As the country enters a critical phase (the disease is beginning to spread fast in hitherto less affected regions), here is a 10-point manifesto for the government to consider.
Updated on Jul 18, 2020 07:04 AM IST
Hindustan Times, New Delhi | R Sukumar
Covid-19: What you need to know today
Six months is all it has taken for Covid-19 to upend all plans for 2020, disrupt lives and livelihoods, and prematurely usher in a future for which not everyone is ready, and which comes with its own set of inequalities.
Updated on Jul 17, 2020 03:27 AM IST
Hindustan Times, New Delhi | R Sukumar
Covid-19: What you need to know today
Six months after the pandemic began (though the World Health Organization dragged its feet, declaring it as a pandemic only on March 11), it can be safely said that when it comes to Covid-19, there is no such thing as an exception. If the data is too good to be true, it probably isn’t true.
Updated on Jul 16, 2020 10:37 AM IST
Hindustan Times, New Delhi | R Sukumar
Covid-19: What you need to know today
Research has shown that a lot of the spreading is caused by Covid-19 super spreaders, perhaps explaining the clusters of infection that emerge
Updated on Jul 15, 2020 04:05 AM IST
Hindustan Times, New Delhi | R Sukumar
Covid-19: What you need to know today
At an aggregate level, starting the last week of June, the curve of Covid-19 infections (new cases) in Delhi, Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra is beginning to plateau.
Updated on Jul 14, 2020 03:35 AM IST
Hindustan Times, New Delhi | R Sukumar
Existential WFH Qs for the weekend (it is the weekend, right?)
Most workplaces went casual long before the pandemic (Brooks Brothers has applied for bankruptcy), and athleisure has been a trend for well nigh a decade-and-half, so there is no need to dress up.
Updated on Jul 12, 2020 08:56 AM IST
Hindustan Times, New Delhi | R Sukumar
Covid-19: What you need to know today
Delhi, based on a similar extrapolation, would then be reporting only one in 30 cases. Assuming that the actual proportion isn’t 15% but 10%, it would still be reporting only one in 20 cases. That may sound excessive, but it is probably correct.
Updated on Jul 11, 2020 07:03 AM IST
Hindustan Times, New Delhi | R Sukumar
Covid-19: What you need to know today
India saw 25,724 new cases of Covid-19 on Wednesday, its highest single-day tally thus far. The number of new cases has increased sharply, from around 10,000 in the middle of June to in excess of 22,000 every day this week.
Updated on Jul 10, 2020 03:16 AM IST
Hindustan Times, New Delhi | R Sukumar
Covid-19: What you need to know today
In the first phase of their response to the virus, everyone rushed to lock down. This was the right decision, and backed by science.
Updated on Jul 09, 2020 03:04 AM IST
Hindustan Times, New Delhi | R Sukumar
Covid-19: What you need to know today
By the third week of April, Australia seemed to have things under control. According to data on worldometers.info, the country saw 13 new Covid-19 cases on April 20.
Updated on Jul 08, 2020 06:38 AM IST
Hindustan Times, New Delhi | R Sukumar
Covid-19: What you need to know today
The average number of Covid-19 cases registered last week was 21,180; the average number of deaths, 460. The positivity rate on July 5 was 13.52%; the average positivity rate for the past week was 9.43%.
Updated on Jul 07, 2020 07:04 AM IST
Hindustan Times, New Delhi | R Sukumar
Covid-19: What you need to know today
The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) now wants to reduce the time it takes to conduct Phase 1, Phase 2, and Phase 3 trials for a vaccine candidate of Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech to 45 days.
Updated on Jul 04, 2020 07:21 AM IST
Hindustan Times, New Delhi | R Sukumar
Covid-19: What you need to know today
The pandemic seems to be killing fewer people even as it continues to rage through the world.
Updated on Jul 03, 2020 06:12 AM IST
Hindustan Times, New Delhi | R Sukumar
Covid-19: What you need to know today
Maharashtra, Delhi and Tamil Nadu accounted for 61% of the new cases on June 30, continuing a trend that has been in play for almost two months, maybe even longer, but there are signs.
Updated on Jul 02, 2020 05:57 AM IST
Hindustan Times, New Delhi | R Sukumar
Covid-19: What you need to know today
Across states, even in ones such as Tamil Nadu that are testing aggressively, it isn’t usually possible for someone without symptoms, or who has not had contact with a Covid-positive person, to be tested.
Updated on Jun 30, 2020 04:26 AM IST
Hindustan Times, New Delhi | R Sukumar
Covid-19: What you need to know today
The seven-day average of the cases in the US seemed to be trending down in the middle of June but the curve has now reared its ugly head again, and is trending up.
Updated on Jun 29, 2020 05:18 AM IST
Hindustan Times, New Delhi | R Sukumar
Covid-19: What you need to know to today
The number of tests, cases, hospital beds, ventilators, health care professionals, people under home isolation, and volunteers, are all in the mix, and it is now clear that any district, city, state, or country that manages to crack this optimisation problem can get the better of Covid-19.
Updated on Jun 27, 2020 06:00 AM IST
Hindustan Times, New Delhi | R Sukumar
Covid-19: What you need to know today
The lockdown imposed to slow the spread of the coronavirus disease officially ended on May 31, after 68 days, and we are in a phase (till June 30), that the government calls Unlock 1.0.
Updated on Jun 26, 2020 04:58 AM IST
Hindustan Times, New Delhi | R Sukumar
Covid-19: What you need to know today
Six months into the year, there’s a lot we have learnt about Sars-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19 (the coronavirus disease), and there’s a lot we have learnt about the disease itself.
Updated on Jun 25, 2020 07:53 AM IST
Hindustan Times, New Delhi | R Sukumar