Hindustan Times : Aug 14, 2020, 10:59 AM
New Delhi: In another steep rise in its single-day cases, India has reported 64,553 fresh Covid-19 infections in the past 24 hours. With 1,007 more deaths reported in the last 24 hours across the country, the Covid-19 death toll in India has jumped to 48,040.With this, India’s total Covid-19 count rises to 24,61,191 which includes 6,61,595 active cases and 17,51,556 patients who have been cured from the disease or discharged from hospitals, Ministry of Health stated on Friday.India’s cumulative Covid-19 caseload makes it the third worst-hit country in the world after the United States and Brazil. However, the government maintains that the Covid-19 situation across the country is improving as more number of people are getting cured.India’s recovery rate at present is over 70 percent while the death rate stands at 1.95 percent, among the lowest across the globe.India is relentlessly trying to up its game in the number of Covid-19 testing being done on a daily basis. On Wednesday, India tested in excess of 800,000 samples for the coronavirus disease (Covid-19), inching closer to its target of conducting a million tests a day.Nearly 27 million tests have been conducted across the country since January 22 when Covid-19 testing started with a single lab at the Indian Council of Medical Research’s (ICMR) National Institute of Virology in Pune.At present, over 1,400 labs are equipped and functional to carry out Covid-19 testing across India. As many as 947 of those are in the public sector while 486 are private.