18.5.21

Pandemic: India 2nd country after US to cross 25m cases

Even as the number of fresh infections per day continue to fall, India became only the second country after the US to cross 25 million Covid infections since the beginning of the pandemic. Brazil, the world’s third worst-hit country, has reported about 15.6 million cases so far.

Comparison with previous data shows that India added the recent 5 million cases in a record 14 days. While the previous 5 million cases, when India crossed 20 million benchmark, were added in 15 days, it took 121 days to add the preceding 5 million cases that took India’s cumulative tally from 10 million to 15 million.

Despite the grim landmark, Monday brought some respite as it was the second day in a row when cases didn’t breach the 3 lakh mark.

The day’s death toll was also below 4,000. As of 11pm, 2.6 lakh cases and 3,719 deaths had been reported for the day. Apart from reporting a lower number of cases Monday also reported the steepest decline in active cases, which fell by about 1.5 lakh. However, active cases continue to remain above 3 million.

State-wise analysis of the data shows that Karnataka leads the list with about 38,000 cases and is followed by Tamil Nadu which reported over 33,000 cases on Monday. The case count was 26,616 for Maharashtra and 21,402 for Kerala. Four other states reported between10,000 to 20,000 cases and this included West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan and Odisha. Uttar Pradesh’s case count fell below 10,000 mark while Delhi which was another epicenter of this wave of outbreak reported below 5,000 cases.

Deaths have not witnessed that steep fall as cases as there are 12 states that reported over a hundred deaths on Monday. Maharashtra is leading the list with 516 deaths while Karnataka reported 476 fatalities. The national capital and Tamil Nadu both reported over 300 deaths and the toll was 285 for Uttar Pradesh. Other states to report over a hundred deaths were Punjab, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Bengal, UP, Haryana and Andhra Pradesh.

No comments: