Lower testing pushes India’s single-day Covid tally off peak

ON SUNDAY, INDIA CONDUCTED 1.47 MN COVID TESTS, THIS MONTH’S LOWEST YET, COMPARED WITH 1.7 MN FOR THE FIRST EIGHT DAYS OF MAY

NEW DELHI: India is testing and vaccinating its citizens at a lower rate compared with recent months, a portent for the fight against Covid-19 in the second-most populous country in the world, even as the central government said the country is the fastest globally to administer 170 million coronavirus vaccine doses.

The Union health ministry said it took China took 119 days and the US 115 days for reaching the same vaccine landmark. India, it said, took 114 days to administer 170,176,603 doses. By Monday, the world’s largest vaccine-producing nation had fully vaccinated just over 34.8 million, or about 2.5%, of a population, government data showed.

On Sunday, the country conducted 1.47 million tests for

Covid-19, this month’s lowest yet, data from the state-run Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) showed. The figure compared with a daily average of 1.7 million for the first eight days of May.

This pushed India’s daily case trajectory off its peak. In the 24 hours to Monday, the country saw 366,161 new Covid-19 infections and 3,754 deaths, taking India’s tally to 22.66 million with 246,116 deaths as hospitals run out of oxygen and beds and morgues and crematoria overflow.