Virus cases in India cross 22-lakh mark

India crossed the 22 lakh cases mark on Sunday. On Saturday, India had recorded 65,788 cases, the highest so far on a given day.

The biggest contributors to the spike were Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh both of which reported over 10,000 cases in a single day while numbers are rising in Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka, Bihar and West Bengal.

Delhi, where the number of cases has fallen impressively, is again reporting a high number of cases. However, Delhi health minister said the rise in Delhi numbers is due to persons from outside the city coming to the capital for testing and treatment which is leading to the increase in numbers.

Union health ministry officials said such high numbers of positive cases are due to higher testing. In a new high, India has scaled the peak of testing more than 7 lakh people in a single day as 7,19,364 tests were conducted in the last 24 hours. India has so far conducted 2, 41,

06, 535 tests.

“Such high levels of testing will also lead to a high number of daily positive cases. However, states have been advised to firmly focus on comprehensive tracking, prompt isolation and effective treatment. Several meetings in the past week have engaged with states showing higher fatality rates,” said union health ministry officials.

They added that such an approach of high testing has started showing results and recoveries are also increasing exponentially. India recorded the highest number of recoveries in a single day with

53,879 patients recovered and discharged on Saturday. With this, the total number of recovered cases has touched another high of 14,80,884 on Sunday.

“This is more than twice the number of active cases (6,28,747). The number of recovered cases is

2.36 times the active cases, which are all under medical attention either in home isolation or in hospitals,” officials said.