Coronavirus / 1 crore coronavirus tests conducted in India, active cases near 2.6 lakh

Hindustan Times : Jul 07, 2020, 11:08 AM
New Delhi: India, the world’s third worst-hit country, recorded more than 22,000 cases of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) and 467 deaths between Monday and Tuesday morning, Union health ministry’s data showed.

The tally now stands at 719,665 after the 22,252 fresh infections in a single day. The number of Covid-19 cases in India has mounted to 7 lakh from 6 lakh in just four days as more than 20,000 infections, with over 24,000 on two days, have been reported every day since July 3.

And, the Covid-19 cases have ballooned since January end when the country’s first case was reported in Kerala after a student who returned from China’s Wuhan, the original epicentre of a pandemic, came home and tested positive for the viral disease.

With 20,160 deaths, India’s fatality rate or the number of deaths as a percentage of total cases was 2.80% on Tuesday. It was 2.82% on Monday morning as compared to 3% a week ago.

The number of recovered cases among Covid-19 patients rose to 439,947 on Tuesday. During the last 24 hours, 15,515 patients have been cured.

The number of recovered patients is more than the 259,557 active cases of Covid-19. This takes India’s recovery rate to 61.13%.

The health ministry has also said that the national positivity rate, the percentage of samples testing coronavirus positive from the total number of samples, is 6.73% while many states have reported lower.

“As part of the coordinated efforts, the Union government has emphasized on increasing testing, prompt contact tracing and timely clinical management of the cases. It has also helped the States to significantly ramp up testing capacities. This has resulted in reduced positivity in the country. Currently, the national positivity rate stands at 6.73%,” it said on Monday.

It added that in Delhi, the efforts being made by the UT were significantly bolstered by the Centre to ensure an increase in testing.

“As a result of concerted and focused efforts by Government of India to augment efforts, the average number of samples being tested per day which was only 5481 (1st-5th June 2020) has witnessed a huge increase to reach an average of 18,766 samples per day between 1st to 5th July 2020,” it said.

Delhi’s positivity rate has seen a substantial decrease from about 30% to 10% in the last three weeks.

Maharashtra remains the worst-affected state with 211,987 cases, including 9,026 deaths. Tamil Nadu is second with 114,978 cases, including 1,571 deaths, and Delhi is third with 100,823 cases, including 3,115 deaths.

The national capital is the worst-affected metro city in the country.

The health ministry said on Monday that the number of tests to detect the coronavirus disease has crossed the 10 million milestone.

“This signifies the importance accorded to widespread testing and the focussed ‘Test, Trace, Treat’ strategy with several follow-up measures taken in tandem by the Central government and the States/UTs,” it said.

It said on Monday that 346,459 samples had been tested in 24 hours and that the cumulative number of samples tested as of now is 1,01,35,525.

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