Coronavirus / India records its biggest one-day rise in coronavirus cases as 57,118 test +ve

New Delhi: India reported its biggest one-day rise in the cases of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) as 57,118 people tested positive and 764 died in the last 24 hours, which pushed its tally to nearly 1.7 million, data from Union health ministry showed on Saturday.

There are 1,695,988 cases of the viral disease, including 36,511 deaths, as of Saturday morning, according to the health ministry’s dashboard.

More than a million cases were added to the country’s infection tally in July—from 585,493 on July 1 to 1,638,870 on July 31—and the death toll went up to 35,747 from 17,400 in the same period.

The recovery rate stands at 64.52% after 1,094,374 patients—36,569 between Friday and Saturday morning—have been cured so far. The gap between active cases, at 565,103, and recovered cases now stands at 529,271.

The surge in numbers came as the country entered the third phase of Unlock from Saturday. Unlock 2.0, in which the government had eased some restrictions after the 68-day hard lockdown, ended on Friday. It was the second of a three-phase plan aimed at lifting restrictions imposed to stop the spread of the infection.

The Centre had issued guidelines for the third phase of lifting curbs imposed to stop the spread of the coronavirus disease on Wednesday, announcing that gyms and yoga centres can reopen from August 5, while also removing a night curfew that restricted movement of people outside containment zones.

The new guidelines, which came into effect from Saturday, said that a strict lockdown will continue in containment zones – areas that report clusters of the disease – till August 31 and asked authorities to maintain strict perimeter control in such zones.

The latest guidelines said that schools, colleges, theatres, swimming pools, metro rail, cinema halls and bars will continue to remain closed. Social, political, religious, sports and entertainment functions and other large congregations will also not be allowed.

Data has shown that new hotspots are emerging in Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh, away from the previous hotbeds of Maharashtra, Delhi and Tamil Nadu.

As on one of the strategies to contain the spread of the pandemic, authorities will start the second serological survey for Covid-19 in Delhi and around 15,000 blood samples—half of which will be from people between the ages of 18 and 49 —will be collected till August 5.

The exercise is an epidemiological survey covering a representative population – the number of people, where they reside, their age and gender is meant to reflect the city’s demographics and who the outbreak affects.

Globally, there are more than 17.5 million people who have been infected and 678,775 have died so far, according to the coronavirus tracker of Johns Hopkins University. India is the third worst-hit country after the United States and Brazil.