India virus cases top 3 million
THE NUMBER of coronavirus cases in India topped 3 million yesterday, government data showed, as the country logged the world’s biggest daily rise in cases for almost three weeks.
India, a country of 1.3 billion, has so far reported 3 044 940 infections, with 69 239 cases being reported in the last 24 hours, the health ministry said.
India is ranked third behind Brazil and the US in the highest number of cases.
Another 912 people died, taking the total death toll to 56 706, data on the ministry website showed.
India confirmed the last million cases in just 16 days, and the previous million in 21 days, faster than the US or Brazil.
It touched its first million cases on July 17, around 140 days after reporting its first case at the end of January. The rate of infections has grown exponentially since India began lifting its lockdown in phases from mid-May.
India has been generating the highest number of daily new cases in the world for the past 18 days, domestic media reported, with more than 50 000 fresh cases every day. Healthcare workers and testing centres in several regions are overburdened.
As its share in total worldwide cases has grown, India also reported nearly 2.2 million recoveries. Health ministry officials maintained the country was controlling the pandemic effectively.
“India is in a better position than the rest of the world. India probably has the world’s best recovery rate of 75% and lowest fatality rate at 1.87%,” health minister Harsh Vardhan said.
“Health experts from India and abroad had forecast India to have 300 million cases and up to 6 million deaths by July-August. It’s getting to the end of August and we are reaching 3 million cases now. A total of 2.2 million patients have recovered and another 700 000 are going to be cured very soon,” he said.
India had ramped up its testing, now conducting more than 1 million tests every day. A total of 30.5 million samples had been tested so far.
Cases have plateaued in some major cities, including national capital New Delhi and the financial hub of Mumbai. Several states have fresh restrictions amid a spike in cases. Celebrations for an 11-day Hindu festival, Ganesh Chaturthi, have been scaled down amid the outbreak.