India clocks record of 69k daily cases, tally at 2.8mn

Maharashtra logged 13,165 infections, followed by Andhra Pradesh with 9,742 cases

NEW DELHI: India on Wednesday recorded 69,669 new cases of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19), a record single-day increase, taking the total case tally to 2,833,381, according to HT’S Covid-19 dashboard.

Wednesday’s record came a day after the country reported the highest single-day recoveries of 60,433 on Tuesday. So far, 2,093,658 patients have recovered from Covid-19 in the country and 53,983 people have died, according to HT’S dashboard.

As of Wednesday, there are 685,740 active cases in the country. Only two countries in the world – the United States and Brazil – have reported more cases of the disease than India. However, India’s trajectory of daily cases has been the worst in the world for at least eight days now.

The doubling rate of cases – the time it takes for the total case count to double – stands at 28.5 days as of Wednesday night.

In terms of the areas in the country that have become hot spots, we see that Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Uttar Pradesh – the five worst-hit states – account for more than 60% of all cases in the country.

Maharashtra continues to be the worst-affected state with 628,642 infections and 21,033 deaths. The state reported 13,165 new cases and 346 new fatalities on Wednesday, both the highest of any state in the country.

Andhra Pradesh, which has become one of the worst hot spots in the past few weeks, reported the second-highest number of new cases (9,742) on Wednesday, taking the state’s tally to 316,003 infections.

Karnataka reported the thirdhighest number of new cases, with 8,642 new infections taking the state’s tally to 249,590. There were 126 new deaths in the state, which means that a total of 4,327 people have died from the disease.

A total of 116 deaths and 5,795 new cases were reported from Tamil Nadu, which has is the third worst-hit state in the country, on Wednesday, the state’s health department informed.

The total number of positive cases in Tamil Nadu now stands at 355,449, including 53,155 active cases and 6,123 deaths.

As the pandemic accelerates in some of the world’s most populous regions, 22,446,960 cases were recorded across the world

till late Wednesday night with 787,261 fatalities — reflecting a global case fatality rate (CFR) of 3.5%. India, however, fared significantly better than the world average with a CFR of 1.9%. India’s CFR is also better than US (3.1%) and Brazil (3.2%).