In a major development, India on Saturday reached past one crore covid-19 cases. It has become the second country to do so, following the United States which had completed the grim milestone on November 9.
On Friday, India logged in 25,152 new coronavirus cases and 347 deaths, taking the total number of infected people since January to 10,004,599 and death toll to 14,51,36, the health ministry said.
In India, the number of infections had crossed the 10 lakh-mark on July 17; 20 lakh on August 7; 30 lakh on August 23; 40 lakh on September 5; 50 lakh on September 16; 60 lakh on September 28; 70 lakh on October 11; 80 lakh on October 29; and 90 lakh on November 20.
Three months –August, September and October — saw the worst surge in covid-19 cases with the country reporting its highest daily spike of over 97,000 cases on September 16.
However, the number of cases saw sharp decline in late November and early December with the total daily coming down to near 20,000 cases.
The health ministry, meanwhile, hailed India’s progress and said that among all the countries hit by the virus, India has reported the highest recovery rate.
Notably the recovery rate is 95.46 per cent, while the death rate is 1.45 per cent. The active caseload is also below four lakh for the last 12 days. As many as 95,50,712 people have recovered while 3,08,751 remain currently active, the ministry added.
A total of 16,00,90,514 samples have been tested for Covid-19 till date. Of these, 11,71,868 samples were tested on Friday: Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR)
Here’re some more updates related to the virus:
*Maharashtra continues to be the worst-hit state with 18,88,767 cases till date.
*Over 76 per cent of the daily new cases are being reported by 10 states and union territory and in the random order they include — Kerala, West Bengal, Chhattisgarh, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Tamil Nadu, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Gujarat.
*Over 75 per cent of the deaths are being reported from Maharashtra, West Bengal, Delhi, Kerala, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Punjab, Tamil Nadu, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh.
*The US Food and Drug Administration has approved Moderna’s covid-19 vaccine candidate. Notably, the US had earlier approved emergency auhtorisation to Pfizer and BioNTech’s vaccine candidate.
*China reports 17 new Covid-19 cases versus 12 a day earlier, reports Reuters.
*”1 Crore covid infections with almost 1.5 lakh deaths! The unplanned lockdown did not manage to ‘win the battle in 21 days’ as the PM claimed, but it surely destroyed millions of lives in the country,” Congress leader Rahul Gandhi Tweeted.
Meanwhile, the overall number of global coronavirus cases has topped 75.5 million, while the deaths have surged to more than 1.67 million, according to the Johns Hopkins University.
