New Delhi, Sept 7, 2020: India has surpassed Brazil to become the second worst-hit by the coronavirus pandemic in the world.
A record daily spike of 90,802 cases has taken the country’s tally past 4.2 million, Health Ministry data showed September 7. This is the second consecutive day that the country registered more than 90,000 new infections in 24 hours.
About 882,000 cases in the country are active (20.9 percent of the total cases) and the recovery rate stood at 77 percent. The United States, which has the highest number of Covid-19 cases in the world, has more than 6.27 million infections so far, about 2 million more than India.
India has been reporting the highest number of daily Covid cases in the world for nearly a month, according to the World Health Organization data.
Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Uttar Pradesh are the worst-hit states. These five states also reported the highest number of new cases in the last 24 hours.
The record surge in cases comes as metro services restart across the country September 7 amid strict measures to check the spread of infection.
About 3.25 million Covid patients in the country have recovered so far; more than 69,000 recoveries were recorded in the last 24 hours. Across the country, 71,642 deaths linked to Covid have been registered since the beginning of the pandemic; 1,016 deaths have been recorded.
The positivity rate, which is an indicator of the prevalence of the highly contagious disease, stood at 12.6 percent September 7 morning as compared to 8.2 percent the previous day. About 720,000 samples were tested over the last 24 hours, taking the total number of samples tested to 49.5 million. India has a population of 1.30 billion and a patient can be tested more than once till he recovers.
India’s “comprehensive and calibrated actions within the umbrella strategy of ‘test, track, treat’ have resulted in a low mortality rate, the Union Health Ministry has said. “Sustained efforts through early diagnosis, and timely and effective treatment continue to steadily push the CFR down,” the Health Ministry said in a tweet. The fatality rate stood at 1.7 percent September 7 morning.
Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka have been instructed to take aggressive measures to control the spread of the infectious virus. The federal Health Ministry on September 4 directed the three states to keep their mortality rates below one percent.
Across the world, more than 27 million cases so far have been logged so far; 883,000 Covid patients have died. After the United States and India, Brazil, Russia and Peru have the highest number of cases.
Source: ndtv.com