India's COVID-19 tally has crossed the 34-lakh mark with a spike of 76,472 new infections in the last 24 hours, according to data from the Union Health Ministry this morning. An additional 1,021 new deaths brought the overall death count to 62,550, it said. The total number of COVID-19 cases now stand at 34,63,972. The number of new cases in India on Thursday was the highest in the world, crossing that of the United States. 26,48,998 patients have recovered from the infection in the country, taking the recovery rate to 76.47 per cent. There are 7,52,424 active coronavirus cases in the country currently, which account for 21.72 per cent of the total caseload, the Union Health Ministry data showed.
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Since August 4, India's daily coronavirus case count has been the highest in the world. India's COVID-19 tally had crossed the 20-lakh mark on August 7 and the 30-lakh mark on August 23.
Though the country is recording around 1,000 deaths a day from the coronavirus, roughly the same as the US and Brazil, India is far better than these countries when we consider the number of deaths per million people.
Maharashtra, the worst-hit state, on Friday reported 14,857 fresh cases of coronavirus infection, taking the case tally in the state to 7,47,995. 106 policemen in the state have also tested positive for COVID-19 Maharashtra is followed by Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka.
With 5,996 new COVID-19 cases reported on Friday, Tamil Nadu, has 4,09,238 cases now. Meanwhile, Andhra Pradesh Covid tally has crossed the four-lakh mark with over 10,000 fresh positives for the third straight day. The state has tested 61,331 samples, of which 10,526 have tested positive for coronavirus as on Friday.
Delhi is witnessing resurgence in the number of coronavirus cases as the numbers have risen again. On Friday, the national capital recorded 1,808 fresh COVID-19 cases, taking the tally in the city to over 1.69 lakh. The number of fatalities due to the disease stand at 4,389, authorities said. This is the second consecutive day when Delhi recorded over 1,800 new cases in August.
On Friday, Assam became the 10th state in the country to report one lakh coronavirus cases after it reported 2,560 new infections in 24 hours. The first Covid case in the state was detected on March 31 and it has taken 150 days to cross the one lakh-mark.
There are only 22 per cent active cases in the country, the Union Health Ministry said on Friday after 60,177 recovered from the virus in a day. "The number of recoveries is nearly 3.5 times the active cases, which comprise 21.90 per cent of the total cases," it said. The gap between recoveries and active cases now increased to 18,41,925.
On Friday, the Supreme Court gave a go-ahead to national education body University Grants Commission plan to hold final year college examinations amid the pandemic. The court, however, added that the states can ask for the dates to be deferred beyond September 30 if they wanted to because of the coronavirus crisis.
Six opposition-ruled states have approached the Supreme Court seeking a review of order permitting the centre to go ahead with holding the NEET medical entrance exam and the JEE for admission to the IITs amid the coronavirus pandemic.
The coronavirus pandemic has killed over 8.31 lakh people globally since it emerged in China late last year. Over 2.44 crore people have been infected with the novel coronavirus. The US is by far the hardest-hit country in the world in terms of both number of cases and deaths.
