India / How many deaths did India, US, Brazil report on reaching 20L COVID-19 cases?

New Delhi: India’s Covid-19 tally crossed the two million-mark on Thursday. It is now only the third country after the US and Brazil to have reached the grim milestone.

It took India three weeks (or 21 days) to post its second million. And the majority of the new cases - 42 per cent - has come from five states, namely Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal and Bihar.

The number of Covid-19 cases in India reached five lakh (or half million-mark) on June 26, in just a little over 19 days. The next half million came on July 16, according to analysis of data from states and union territories.

After the one million-mark, India crossed the 1.5 million milestone on July 28 and two million on August 6.

India’s journey to two million cases took 158 days, with at least 90 per cent of these cases coming after the lifting of the hard nationwide lockdown that was announced at the end of March - a strategy that officials and experts said bought the country precious time to set up isolation centres, add hospital beds, and strengthen testing infrastructure.

While Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Delhi were the original hotspots, the trend has shifted in the last three weeks. Forty two per cent of the new cases have come from Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal and Bihar.

If cases in the country continue to grow at the same rate they have till now, which is likely considering how new states such as Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Uttar Pradesh have emerged as hotspots, experts estimate that the next million cases may take just a little over two weeks.

Meanwhile, the data from states and union territories show that the recoveries have surged to 13.70 lakh. In fact, the recoveries exceeded active cases of the coronavirus infection by 7,32,835 on Thursday, according to Union health ministry.

The ministry also said that the daily new recoveries are increasing steadily.

“The progressively increasing daily new recoveries are due to a focused attention on surveillance, containment and effective clinical management. India created a network of Covid Dedicated Hospitals to manage the cases,” it said.

It also said that India has one of the lowest deaths/million compared to many countries.