COVID-19: India crosses 40-lakh mark

The total number of coronavirus cases crossed the 40-lakh mark on Saturday to reach 40, 23,179 , as the country recorded 86,432 infections in the last 24 hours, accroding to the data by health ministry.

With 1, 089 fresh deaths, the toll reached 69, 561. At present, India has 8,46,395 active cases and as many as 31,07,233 people have recovered pushing the recovery rate to 77.2 percent.

India has been reporting more than 80,000 cases perday for the last three days now. India is now the third country after US and Brazil to record 40 lakh cases.

The COVID-19 case fatality rate due to the novel coronavirus infection has further declined to 1.73 percent.

It took 110 days for the Covid-19 cases in India to reach one lakh while it had taken 59 days more to go past the 10-lakh post.

Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh are the five states which reported the highest number of cases in the last 24 hours. These five states account for over 62 per cent of the active cases, according to the Health Ministry.

15 districts across these states have been exhibiting higher active caseload, fatality rates and a surge in COVID cases for the past four weeks. The Centre has now asked them to curb chain of transmission and bring mortality rate below 1 per cent.

Maharashtra reported its highest single-day spike of 19,218 new cases on Friday. The number of COVID-19 cases in the state now stand at 8,63,062. The state government will launch a state-wide campaign to screen 2.25 crore families for possible COVID-19.

After a brief drop, Delhi has seen a rise in the number of COVID-19 cases over the last few days. The national capital on Friday reported 2,914 fresh infections, its highest one-day spike in 69 days. Delhi now has over 1.85 lakh cases, while the death count jumped to 4,513, authorities said.

Now India is just 70,000 cases behind Brazil, the world’s second worst affected nation after the United States. The South American country, which has reported 40,91,801 cases so far, has showing initial signs of decrease in the spread of virus.