India logs fresh record spike with 9,304 Covid-19 cases

Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Delhi and Guj together account for 65% infections

NEW DELHI: Coronavirus disease (Covid-19) cases in India saw a record single-day jump of 9,304 cases between Wednesday and Thursday while 260 people succumbed to the infection in the same period, the Union health ministry said, as the situation in the country continued to worsen amid easing of the national lockdown.

According to coronavirus tracker covid19india.org, India recorded 218,061 cases and 6,097 fatalities till 6.30pm on Thursday. India is now the seventh worsthit nation by the Covid-19 pandemic after the US, Brazil, Russia, the UK, Spain and Italy.

Of the 260 deaths reported since Wednesday, 122 were in Maharashtra, 50 in Delhi, 30 in Gujarat, 11 in Tamil Nadu, 10 in West Bengal, seven each in Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Telangana, six in Rajasthan, four in Andhra Pradesh and one each in Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jammu and Kashmir, Karnataka, Punjab and Uttarakhand.

Maharashtra has reported the maximum 2,587 fatalities till date, followed by Gujarat with 1,122 deaths, Madhya Pradesh 371, West Bengal 345, Uttar Pradesh 229, Rajasthan 209, Tamil Nadu 208, Telangana 99 and Andhra Pradesh 68 deaths.

According to the ministry’s website, more than 70% of the deaths were due to comorbidities.

Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Delhi and Gujarat — the four worst affected states in India — together account for over 143,000, of 65.5% of the cases.

The highest number of confirmed Covid-19 cases was reported from Maharashtra at 74,860, followed by Tamil Nadu at 25,872, Delhi at 23,645, Gujarat at 18,117 Rajasthan at 9,720, Madhya Pradesh at 8,588 and Uttar Pradesh at 8,870.

Globally, there are now 6.7 million infections of Sars-CoV-2, which causes Covid-19, and close to 390,000 deaths. The case fatality rate (CFR) in India, however, stood at 2.79%, lower than the worldwide figure of 5.88%.

Data from states showed 104,410 patients have so far recuperated from the disease in the country, taking the recovery rate to 47.88%, which is among the most promising figures on the infection across the world.

The low CFR and high recovery rate indicate that India may not be witnessing an impact as severe as in some of the other countries ravaged by the pathogen.

The ministry of health on Thursday said that in the last 24 hours a total of 3,804 Covid-19 patients have been cured. It said the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has further ramped up the testing capacity for detecting the coronavirus in infected persons.

“The number of government labs has been increased to 498 and private labs has been increased to 212,” the ministry said in a statement.

“139,485 samples were tested in the last 24 hours. The total number of samples tested thus far is 4,242,718,” it said.

In India and across the world, governments are easing restrictions as they face political challenges and poor economic indicators brought on by the pandemic. Experts say the cases are expected to surge as India exits the national lockdown – necessitated by the pandemic – in a graded manner.

Labelled “Unlock 1”, the latest phase of the easing of restrictions involves countrywide reopening of markets and public movement.

The Centre has also reoriented its strategy against the outbreak – from asking people to “stay home” to break the chain of infections, it is now asking citizens to learn to live with the virus by ensuring strict social distancing and hand hygiene.