New Delhi: India’s COVID-19 tally zoomed past six lakh on Thursday with a single-day increase of 19,148 cases, just five days after it crossed the five-lakh mark, while the death toll rose to 17,834, according to Union health ministry data.
It took 110 days for coronavirus infections in the country to reach one lakh, while just 44 days more to go past the six-lakh mark.
The country’s COVID-19 caseload increased to 6,04,641 on Thursday, while 434 persons have succumbed to the disease in the last 24 hours, data updated at 8 am showed.
With a steady rise, the number of recoveries stands at 3,59, 859 while one patient has migrated. There are 2,26,947 active cases of coronavirus infection at present in the country.
“Thus, around 59.52% of patients have recovered so far,” an official said.
The total number of confirmed cases included foreigners.
This is the sixth consecutive day when coronavirus infections increased by more than 18,000. There has been a surge of 4,14,106 COVID-19 cases from June 1 till date.
According to the ICMR, the number of tests for detection of the disease crossed the nine million mark on Thursday.
A cumulative total of 90,56,173 samples have been tested up to July 1, while 2,29,588 samples have been tested on Wednesday, the apex health research body said.
State-wise deaths
Of the 434 deaths reported in the last 24 hours, 198 are from Maharashtra, 63 from Tamil Nadu, 61 from Delhi, 21 each from Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat, 15 from West Bengal, nine from Madhya Pradesh, eight from Rajasthan, seven each from Telangana and Karnataka, six from Andhra Pradesh, five from Punjab, four each from Haryana and Jammu and Kashmir, three from Bihar and one each from Chhattisgarh and Goa.
Of the total 17,834 deaths reported so far, Maharashtra has accounted for the highest — 8,053 fatalities — followed by Delhi with 2,803 deaths, Gujarat with 1,867,Tamil Nadu with 1,264, Uttar Pradesh with 718, West Bengal with 683, Madhya Pradesh with 581, Rajasthan with 421 and Telangana with 267 deaths.
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The COVID-19 death toll reached 253 in Karnataka, 240 in Haryana, 193 in Andhra Pradesh, 149 in Punjab, 105 in Jammu and Kashmir, 70 in Bihar, 41 in Uttarakhand, 25 in Odisha and 24 in Kerala.
Jharkhand has registered 15 deaths, Chhattisgarh 14, Assam and Puducherry 12 each, Himachal Pradesh 10, Chandigarh six, Goa four and Meghalaya, Tripura, Ladakh and Arunachal Pradesh have reported one fatality each, according to the health ministry.
More than 70% deaths took place due to co-morbidities, it said.
State-wise cases
Maharashtra has reported the highest number of cases at 1,80,298, followed by Tamil Nadu at 94,049, Delhi at 89,802, Gujarat at 33,232, Uttar Pradesh at 24,056, West Bengal at 19,170 and Rajasthan at 18,312 according to the ministry data.
The number of COVID-19 cases has gone up to 17,357 in Telangana, 16,514 in Karnataka, 15,252 in Andhra Pradesh, 14,941 in Haryana, and 13,861 in Madhya Pradesh.
It has risen to 10,249 in Bihar, 8,582 in Assam, 7,695 in Jammu and Kashmir and 7,316 in Odisha. Punjab has reported 5,668 novel coronavirus infections so far, while Kerala has 4,593 cases.
A total of 2,947 people have been infected by the virus in Uttarakhand, 2,940 in Chhattisgarh, 2,521 in Jharkhand, 1,396 in Tripura, 1,387 in Goa, 1,260 in Manipur, 990 in Ladakh and 979 in Himachal Pradesh.
Puducherry has recorded 714 COVID-19 cases, Nagaland 459, Chandigarh 446 and Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu together have reported 215 COVID-19 cases.
Arunachal Pradesh reported 195 cases, Mizoram has 160 cases, Sikkim has 101, Andaman and Nicobar Islands has registered 100 infections so far, while Meghalaya has recorded 52 cases.
Global numbers
Across the world, there have now been more than 10 million confirmed cases of COVID-19. In total, 10,694,288 confirmed cases have been reported as of Thursday morning.
According to Johns Hopkins University, the global death toll due to COVID-19 stands at 516,255. Another 5,480,394 people have recovered from the disease.
In many countries, official data includes only deaths reported in hospitals, not those in homes or nursing homes.
The US has recorded 2,686,480 confirmed cases of COVID-19, the respiratory illness caused by the coronavirus. Brazil is in second place with 1,448,753 cases, followed by Russia (653,479), India (604,641) and the UK (314,992).
The US has also recorded the highest death toll, with 128,062 fatalities so far. The death toll has also been high in Brazil (60,632), the UK (43,991), Italy (34,788), France (29,864) and Spain (28,364) and Mexico (28,510).
Truce too late
The UN Security Council on Wednesday finally backed UN chief Antonio Guterres’ March 23 call for a global truce amid the coronavirus pandemic, adopting a resolution after months of talks to win a compromise between the United States and China.
The resolution, drafted by France and Tunisia, calls for “all parties to armed conflicts to engage immediately in a durable humanitarian pause for at least 90 consecutive days” to allow for the delivery of humanitarian aid.
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Negotiations on the resolution were stymied by a standoff between China and the United States over whether to urge support for the World Health Organisation. “We have really seen the body at its worst,” Richard Gowan, International Crisis Group UN director, said of the council. “This is a dysfunctional Security Council.”
WHO warns some nations still face ‘long, hard’ battle with COVID-19
Nations who fail to use every mechanism available to combat the still-raging novel coronavirus will struggle to beat it, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Wednesday.
“Some countries … have taken a fragmented approach. These countries face a long, hard road ahead,” Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a virtual briefing from WHO headquarters in Geneva, without singling out any nations.
More than 10.5 million people have been infected globally and more than half a million have died since the COVID-19 disease first emerged in China.
Tedros said local flare-ups were inevitable as some nations began lifting lockdown restrictions. “But countries that have the systems in place to apply a comprehensive approach should be able to contain these flare-ups locally and avoid reintroducing widespread restrictions,” he said.
(With agency inputs)
