Covid count crosses 2L, but peak still far

8,171 fresh cases, 204 deaths in last 24 hours; fatality rate of 2.82% among world’s lowest

India’s coronavirus cases crossed two lakhs on Tuesday and the figures are rising fast, but the government claims the country is still far away from reaching the peak. Covid19India.org, citing updated data from the state governments till Tuesday evening, said there were were 2,01,007 cases in all and 5,628 deaths, while the Union health ministry’s figures that were released Tuesday morning said there were 1,98,706 Covid19 cases and 5,598 deaths in India, with 8,171 new cases and 204 deaths in the last 24 hours.

Health ministry joint secretary Lav Aggarwal said it was wrong to look only at the total cases, and

say India had the seventh highest number worldwide, as the population also had to be factored in. He added 14 countries with a combined population almost equal to India’s had reported 55.2 times more Covid-19 deaths. “Our fatality rate of 2.82 per cent is among the lowest in the world, compared to a global fatality rate of 6.13 per cent,” he said. Meanwhile, Delhi saw 990 fresh Covid-19 cases Tuesday, taking the total count to 20,834, while the death toll rose to 523.

One in every two Covid-19 deaths in India was of senior citizens who are 10 per cent of the population, while 73 per cent of Covid19 deaths in the country are of people with co-morbidities. The government has cleared antiviral drug Remdesivir for emergency use in treating Covid patients after it showed improvement during clinical trials.

The Indian Council of Medical Research is doing a sero-survey to assess the extent of Covid-19’s spread, and almost 34,000 people are being tested. The results will be made public by the end of this week or early next week. “We are very far from the peak. Our preventive steps to check the disease are very effective, said ICMR scientist Nivedita Gupta.

The ICMR official said 1.20 lakh samples are being tested for Covid-19 on an average per day and at present there are 476 government and 205 private labs testing for the virus.

Responding to a question, she also said there was no under-reporting of COVID-19 deaths in India and states were doing causality assessment and attributing cause of death accordingly.