India overtakes Russia with world’s thirdhighest number of Covid-19 cases

INDIA on Monday (6) overtook Russia to record the world’s third-highest number of coronavirus infections at nearly 700,000, even as its hardest-hit state said it will allow hotels to reopen this week.

Health ministry data from the world’s second-most populous country showed more than 23,000 new cases on Monday, down slightly from Sunday’s record increase of almost 25,000. There have been almost 20,000 deaths in India since the first case was detected there in January.

India now trails only the US and Brazil in the number of Covid-19 cases and it has recorded eight times as many cases as China, where the virus was first identified in late 2019.

But its death rate per 10,000 people is still a low 0.15, compared with 3.97 in the US and 6.65 in the United Kingdom, according to a Reuters tally. Mainland China stands at 0.03.

Officials said they had reversed a decision to reopen the Taj Mahal, India’s most famous tourist attraction, in the city of Agra, on Monday, following a rise in new cases in the area.

Some other monuments in and around the capital New Delhi opened on Monday, albeit with very few visitors. India is pushing ahead with relaxations to its more than two-month lockdown amid grim economic forecasts.

New Delhi, along with Maharashtra, home to India’s financial capital Mumbai, and the southern state of Tamil Nadu account for about 60 per cent of the total coronavirus cases in the country.

Maharashtra - the worst-hit state with nearly 210,000 cases - said it would let hotels outside containment zones reopen at 33 per cent capacity from Wednesday and issued guidelines for staff and guests.

India is also seeing an uptake in cases in states such as Kerala, Karnataka and Assam, which until recently had been relatively unscathed.

“This is showing up as an urban health challenge,” said Dr Rajib Dasgupta, a professor of community health at the Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, noting it is exposing weaknesses in the public health system.

Meanwhile, early detection and a timely clinical management of Covid-19 cases have resulted in increasing daily recoveries, with the recovery rate of coronavirus patients crossing 60 per cent in the country on Friday, country’s health ministry said.

“Coordinated efforts at all levels of government for prevention, containment and management of Covid-19 are showing good results with a consistently increasing gap between recoveries and active cases,” the ministry said.

In accordance with the “test, trace, treat” strategy and with various measures taken recently to remove all impediments to Covid-19 testing and facilitate widespread testing by the states and union territories, there has been a steady rise in the number of samples tested for the disease every day, the ministry said.

This has also been possible due to the ever-expanding network of testing laboratories in the country, the ministry underlined. The country currently has 1,074 laboratories for Covid-19 testing 775 government-run and 299 private it said

Of the 425 deaths reported during the past 24 hours reported on Monday, 151 are from Maharashtra, 63 from Delhi, 60 from Tamil Nadu, 37 from Karnataka, 21 from West Bengal, 18 from Gujarat, 14 from Andhra Pradesh, 12 from Uttar Pradesh, 10 from

Madhya Pradesh, nine from Rajasthan, seven from Telangana, six from Bihar, five each from Jammu and Kashmir and Haryana, two each from Punjab, Jharkhand and Odisha, and one from Goa.

Of the 19,693 deaths reported so far, Maharashtra accounts for 8,822 deaths, followed by Delhi (3,067), Gujarat (1,943), Tamil Nadu (1,510), Uttar Pradesh (785), West Bengal (757), Madhya Pradesh (608), Rajasthan (456) and Karnataka (372).

The Covid-19 death toll reached 295 in Telangana, 265 in Haryana, 232 in Andhra Pradesh, 164 in Punjab, 132 in Jammu and Kashmir, 95 in Bihar, 42 in Uttarakhand, 36 in Odisha and 25 in Kerala.

Jharkhand has registered 19 deaths due to the disease, Chhattisgarh and Assam have reported 14 deaths each, Puducherry has recorded 12, Himachal Pradesh 11, Goa seven, Chandigarh has registered six deaths, and Meghalaya, Tripura, Ladakh and Arunachal Pradesh have reported one fatality each, according to the ministry. More than 70 per cent of the deaths were due to comorbidities, it said.

Maharashtra has reported the highest number of 2,06,619 cases, followed by Tamil Nadu (1,11,151), Delhi (99,444), Gujarat (36,037), Uttar Pradesh (27,707), Telangana (23,902) and Karnataka (23,474).

The number of Covid-19 cases has gone up to 22,126 in West Bengal, 20,164 in Rajasthan, 18,697 in Andhra Pradesh, 17,005 in Haryana and 14,930 in Madhya Pradesh.

It has risen to 11,876 in Bihar, 11,388 in Assam, 9,070 in Odisha and 8,429 in Jammu and Kashmir. Punjab has reported 6,283 cases of the infection, while Kerala has 5,429 cases.