Coronavirus Cases In India Cross 23,000-Mark; 718 Deaths, 37 In 24 Hours: 10 Points

Amid a nationwide lockdown over the last one month, India has been able to "cut transmission, increase doubling days of COVID-19, and minimise spread," the government said on Thursday. "During the 30 days of lockdown, we have been able to cut transmission, minimise spread and increase doubling days of COVID-19. We have been able to consistently ramp up testing and utilise our time preparing for the future in case the virus spreads further," CK Mishra, Chairman of one of the 11 empowered groups set up by the government told reporters.

An improvement has been recorded over the last week in the recovery rate which indicates the number of people who have successfully fought off the illness, the government data shows. A total of 4,749 patients have recovered so far across the country. The recovery rate stood at 20.57 per cent this morning.

Nearly half of the total cases reported across India have been recorded from three states - Maharashtra, Delhi and Gujarat with each state reporting over 2,000 cases. In total seven states, including the above three and Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh, have around 78 per cent of all cases, with each reporting over 1,000 cases, the government data showed on Thursday.

In Maharashtra, 778 new coronavirus cases were recorded on Thursday, taking the state's COVID-19 tally to 6,427. Fourteen COVID-19 patients died on Thursday, taking the total to 283. With 522 more people testing positive, Mumbai alone has 4,025 coronavirus cases now. The increase was the single-biggest jump for the city since the beginning of the pandemic. The number of deaths in the city rose by six to 167, officials said. In Mumbai's Dharavi, Asia's biggest slum that houses over 8 lakh people, the number of cases rose to 214 and number of deaths to 13.

In Delhi, the number of total number of containment zones was raised to 92 on Thursday where strict measures have been put in place by the state government to check the spread of the illness. Two new clusters of coronavirus cases emerged in Delhi on Thursday with 46 people in North Delhi's Jahangirpuri and 11 of a family in Old Delhi testing positive, health officials said. More than 2,300 cases have been reported so far from the national capital.

Kerala is planning random tests to check if the virus has reached the third stage of transmission. "Random antibody test will be conducted among the police, health officials, online/door delivery persons and guest laborers. This is to ensure there is no community spread in the country," Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan told reporters on Thursday.

India was first in responding to the COVID-19 crisis and stands on a better footing than the rest of the world because of the valuable and sincere services of ''corona warriors'', Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan said at an online WHO meet on Thursday. "India's response has been proactive, pre-emptive and graded in handling the situation arising out of COVID-19 outbreak," he said.

On Thursday, India participated in a video conference of SAARC health ministers hosted by Pakistan to promote greater regional cooperation to deal with the coronavirus pandemic. "The virtual meeting was an occasion for India to reaffirm its strong commitment towards greater sharing of knowledge, expertise and best practices in the joint fight against COVID-19 for the larger regional good," the Ministry of External Affairs said.

The lockdown in India that started over a month ago has impacted nearly 40 million internal migrants, the World Bank has said. "The lockdown in India has impacted the livelihoods of a large proportion of the country's nearly 40 million internal migrants. Around 50,000-60,000 moved from urban centres to rural areas of origin in the span of a few days," the World Bank said in a report earlier this week.

Air pollution over northern India has plummeted to a 20-year-low for this time of the year, according to satellite data published by US space agency National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).