Coronavirus India: More than 3,700 deaths linked to COVID-19 have been reported so far.
India recorded the biggest single-day jump in the number of coronavirus cases with 6,654 new patients in the last 24 hours, taking the total to 1,25,101 cases, the Union Health Ministry said today. The country has registered 3,720 deaths linked to COVID-19 so far. Of these, 137 patients died in the last 24 hours. A total of 51,784 patients have recovered in India. Nearly 25,000 cases have been reported in the last four days, government data shows, after restrictions were eased in most parts of the country as the fourth phase of the lockdown began. Globally, India is 13th on the list of affected countries.
Here are top 10 developments on coronavirus cases in India:
Over the last two months, India has increased its testing capacity by 100 times - from 1,000 tests per day in March to one lakh tests daily tests this month.
In terms of tests per million of its population, India, (around 2,000 per million), ranks behind Spain (around 65,000), the United States and Germany (both around 38,000) and France (around 21,000).
Maharashtra reported the highest number of cases in the last 24 hours with 2,940 new patients, followed by 784 cases in Tamil Nadu. The two states have the highest number of cases in India. While Maharashtra has recorded over 44,000 cases so far, Tamil Nadu has reported over 14,000 patients.
Delhi recorded 660 new patients on Friday as the number of containment zones - where restrictions are in place to contain the illness - rose from 79 to 92 in a single day. The national capital has the fourth highest number of cases in the country (12,319).
Amid spurt in the number of cases, Tamil Nadu on Friday appealed to the centre to rethink its decision to resume flights from Monday.
On Thursday, Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri had said that passengers disembarking from short-haul domestic flights need not go into quarantine. Several states - Karnataka, Kerala and Jammu and Kashmir - later announced a mandatory quarantine for the passengers entering the states by planes.
Visa and travel restrictions imposed during the coronavirus lockdown have been relaxed for certain categories of Overseas Citizens of India (OCIs) stranded abroad and wishing to return to India, the Home Ministry said on Friday afternoon.
Fewer than eight people per lakh of population in India have been infected, the Health Ministry said Wednesday, comparing it to the global average of 62 people per lakh. The government also said India's per lakh mortality rate (0.24) was better than the global average of 4.2 per lakh. It also pointed to a steady increase in recovery rate from 7.1 per cent in March to 40.31 per cent on Thursday.
Worldwide, more than 53 lakh people have been affected due to coronavirus, nearly 3,40,000 have died. Brazil overtook Russia Friday as the country with the second-highest number of coronavirus infections worldwide behind the United States, which is the epicentre of the pandemic.
China on Saturday reported zero new coronavirus infections for the first time since it started reporting data in January. In December, coronavirus had originated in China's Wuhan city.
