Over 11 lakh tests for 2nd consecutive day

Covid-19 cases 40,00,000; death toll 69,000

India ramped up the Coronavirus tests in the country to over 11 lakh for the second consecutive day on Friday touted by the Health Ministry as the highest daily tests in the world, raising the total number of persons tested so far to 4.67 crore. As many as 11,69,765 tests were carried out in the past 24 hours as against the previous day's 11,72,179, after 10 lakh plus tests on four different dates since August 22.

The tests, however, give no clear picture since the Health Ministry is prepared to give the breakup of how many were rapid antigen tests and how many qualitative RTPCR tests. The rapid antigen tests give no finality as those tested negative are again required to undergo the RTPCR tests.

India also recorded the highest number of 1,096

Covid-19 related deaths, raising the death toll to 68,472 even as the number of patients found infected in India crossed 40 lakh. This put the deaths per million to 50. A total of 83,341 persons tested positive for the symptoms of the deadly virus, raising the total infections in the country to 39,36,247.

The number of patients still in the hospitals is going up with another 15,586 hospitalised to raise the total to 8,31,124. The load on the hospitals was, however, reduced by 66,659 in 24 hours as those in hospitals rose to 30.37 lakh. Percentage-wise deaths dipped to 1.75% of total infections and hospitalisation to 21.16% as against the recovery of 79.09%.

Punjab reported the highest 106 deaths in the past 24 hours to occupy third position in terms of deaths, the first two being Maharashtra 292 and Karnataka 113. Delhi recorded 19 more deaths.

The WHO dashboard shows 8,73,223 deaths and 2,64,71,716 Corona cases worldwide.