India Crosses 4 Lakh Coronavirus Cases After Record Jump In Infections

India crossed 4 lakh novel coronavirus cases today on a day the country reported over 14,000 cases, in its steepest one-day jump. The total number of cases is now 4,00,412 and the number of deaths linked to the contagion is close to 13,000. India has the world's fourth highest number behind the United States, Brazil and Russia.

Data from state health departments show an increase of over 5,000 cases just this evening - India's coronavirus tally was 3.95 lakh cases in the morning.

Over 12,900 patients have died due to the deadly virus in the country since the beginning of the pandemic. The country's recovery rate stood at 54.12 per cent this morning.

Maharashtra remains the worst affected state in India with over 1.24 lakh cases followed by Tamil Nadu which reported 56,845 cases - an increase of over 2,000 cases since this morning. The country's capital Delhi is third with over 53,000 cases.

This is the third consecutive day that India registered a record jump in the number of coronavirus cases.

India tested the highest number of samples in the last 24 hours (1,89,869), the government said this morning. A total of 66,16,496 samples have been tested so far.

A number of countries continue to evacuate their citizens from India, amid concerns hospitals in major cities such as Delhi and Mumbai may be overwhelmed.

As cases continue to rise in Delhi, the AAP government ordered government hospitals to cancel all leaves and said further leave would only be granted under the most compelling circumstances.

Globally, the COVID-19 count has crossed 86 lakhs. 4.5 lakh people have died so far. In the United States, which is now the epicentre of the pandemic, 22 lakh people have been affected by the highly contagious illness; 1.1 lakh have died.