India emerges as global hotspot with a new high of 61,994 daily Covid-19 cases

India’s outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic is now one of the world’s fastest growing after passing the milestone of two million cases on Friday.

Experts are worried that infections will now rise exponentially in the world’s second-most populous country, especially in its under-prepared rural hinterland.

India recorded 933 Covid-19 fatalities in the past 24 hours as infections surged by another 63,994 cases yesterday to reach more than 2.1 million.

The health ministry said the death toll touched 43,446, including more than 20,000 in the past 30 days.

An average of about 50,000 new cases have been reported each day since mid-June.

The ministry asked state authorities to test grocery shop workers and street vendors, saying that if undetected they could potentially spread infection to a large number of people.

India has the highest caseload in the world after the United States and Brazil.

It has the fifth-most deaths, but its fatality rate of about 2 per cent is far lower than the top two hardest-hit countries.

The US had more than 5.1 million infections and more than 164,000 deaths as of yesterday, with California, Florida, Texas and New York accounting for more than two million cases.

With Republican and Democratic legislators unable to agree on a financial assistance package for Americans affected by the economic downturn caused by the pandemic, President Donald Trump said he was prepared to sign executive actions to provide expanded unemployment benefits as well as a temporary payroll tax holiday, eviction and student-loan relief.

“If Democrats continue to hold this critical relief hostage, I will act under my authority as president to get the American people the relief they need,” Mr Trump said on Friday.

In Europe, which had the world’s worst outbreak early in the pandemic before being overtaken by the US, a resurgence of cases was causing alarm and prompted renewed restrictions to contain infections.

Italy added another 349 coronavirus infections to its official tally yesterday, a day after it surpassed the 500-case barrier for the first time since late May.

Italy confirmed 552 cases of coronavirus on Friday. With yesterday’s update from the health ministry, Italy’s daily caseload returns to the 200 to 300 range of infections it has maintained for the past several weeks.

Government officials have urged Italians to be on their guard, given that daily infections in Spain, France and Germany have topped the 1,000mark recently after the easing of lockdown measures.

In France, police are worried about the surge in cases in parts of Paris and its wider region. “All the indicators show that since mid-July the virus is again circulating more actively in the region,” the police said.

Four hundred people were testing positive for Covid-19 in the region every day, with the 20-30 age group particularly affected. The police said the rate of positive tests in Paris was 2.4 per cent in the Paris region, compared with the national average of 1.6 per cent.