India's daily Covid cases double to more than 2 lakh in just 10 days
- India added a record over 2 lakh new Covid-19 cases in the past 24 hours, taking the number of active cases in the country to 1,40,74,564, figures released by the union health ministry showed.
- This is also the fastest rise in Covid cases in the country, with the number of daily infections doubling in just 10 days since the beginning of this month.
- The ministry also reported 1,038 deaths due to Corona across the country on Tuesday, which took the cumulative toll to 1,73,123.
- India has already overtaken Brazil to become the country with the second-highest number of Covid-19 cases, after the United States, which counts 31.4 million Covid-19 cases.
- With over 1 lakh fresh infections per day for the ninth consecutive day, India added 13,88,515 cases in just nine days.
- With the steady increase in active cases for the 36th day in a row, the caseload has increased to 10.46 per cent of the total infections, while the recovery rate has dropped to 88.31 per cent.
- The number of Covid-19 infections in the country, which crossed the 2 million mark on 7 August 2020, rose to 3 million on 23 August, to 4 million on 5 September, to 5 million on 16 September, to 6 million on 28 September, to 7 million on 11 October, to 8 million on 29 October, to 9 million on 20 November and surpassed the 100 million mark on 19 December.
- It has now had more than 13.5 million confirmed cases in total, which is more than the caseload in Brazil, and is now only behind the worst-hit United States.
- According to the ICMR, 26,20,03,415 samples have been tested till 14 April, including 13,84,549 samples being tested on Wednesday.
- The surge in cases has stretched the country’s fragile health infrastructure too far, with several states reporting shortages of intensive care (ICU) beds and oxygen cylinders.
- In Maharashtra, the most-affected state, two huge complexes for patients are being set up as the state government initiated a range of curbs on movement, gatherings and commercial establishments for two weeks.
- Hospitals and doctors in Maharashtra as well other regions including Gujarat and Delhi in the north reported chaotic scenes as healthcare facilities were overwhelmed with a surge in admissions of COVID-19 patients.
- Beginning Wednesday night, all shops, malls and e-commerce deliveries except of essential items like food, groceries and medicine have been suspended until 1 May.
- All manufacturing units except export-oriented ones and those manufacturing essential items would also be closed. Bars and restaurants have already been closed and gatherings of more than five people are banned across the state.
- Delhi recorded 17,282 cases over the past 24 hours – the highest single-day figure so far – as the city was running short of ICU beds for COVID-19 patients, with only about 171 with ventilators available late on Wednesday.
- With more fatalities reported, there has been a huge burden on crematoriums and burial grounds in the capital city.
- Television channels also showed angry relatives of a patient who died after spending hours on a stretcher outside a Covid-19 hospital in Jharkhand state’s capital, Ranchi, where all the beds were reported to be occupied.
- Similar scenes could be seen in neighbouring Bihar’s capital, Patna.Recent regional elections and festivals including the mammoth month-long Kumbh Mela are expected to accelerate the infection rate further, with virologist Shahid Jamil calling them super-spreader events. Source: https://www.domain-b.com/
