India surpassed 22 lakh coronavirus cases this morning with over 62,000 new patients recorded in the last 24 hours, the government said today, adding that more than 44 thousand deaths linked to the highly contagious illness have been recorded since the beginning of the pandemic. Over 15.3 lakh Covid patients in the country have recovered so far, the Union Health Ministry said, stressing the recovery rate stood at 69.33 per cent this morning. In the last 24 hours, 1,007 patients died in different parts of the country, the government data shows. The country reported the highest single-day recoveries of 54,859 patients in the last 24 hours, the government said today. The number of patients, who have recovered, exceed the active cases by more than nine lakh. The fatality rate has touched a new low of 2 per cent.
Here are top 10 developments on coronavirus cases in India:
The third worst-hit country by the pandemic, India has been recording a bigger single-day jump in coronavirus cases over the last six days than the United States and Brazil, which have a higher caseload, according to the data shared by the World Health Organization. While Brazil has 30.3 lakh Covid cases, about 8 lakh more than India, the United States - epicentre of the pandemic - has over 50.4 lakh cases.
This is the fourth consecutive day that India has recorded more than 60,000 fresh infections in a day. More than 2 lakh cases have been recorded since Thursday (August 6) when the country's coronavirus cases passed 20 lakh, just three weeks after crossing the 10 lakh mark.
India has logged 22 lakh Covid infections in 193 days after the first patient was reported from Kerala on January 30. The country surpassed one lakh cases on May 19.
Seven states reported over 75 per cent of fresh infections in the last 24 hours: Maharashtra (12,248), Andhra Pradesh (10,820), Tamil Nadu (5,994), Karnataka (5,985), Uttar Pradesh (4,571), Bihar (4,157) and West Bengal (2,939).
Nearly 82 per cent of the deaths linked to the disease since yesterday have been registered from these seven states: Maharashtra (390), Tamil Nadu (119), Karnataka (107), Andhra Pradesh (97), West Bengal (54), Uttar Pradesh (41) and Gujarat (24).
India has recorded over 61.5 percent of total COVID-19 cases and 72.16 per cent of total Covid-linked deaths reported from Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Delhi. About 13.63 lakh cases and 32,029 deaths have been reported from these five states.
The positivity rate - an indicator of the prevalence of the disease - stood at 13.01 per cent this morning, as compared to yesterday's 8.95 per cent.
About 2.45 crore samples have been tested so far; 4.77 lakh samples were tested yesterday. India has an estimated population of about 138 crore and a patient can be tested more than once.
Worldwide, over 1.98 crore people have contracted the virus so far; over 7.31 lakh have died.
For COVID-19, as for many infectious diseases, the true level of transmission is frequently underestimated because a substantial proportion of people with the infection are undetected either because they are asymptomatic or have only mild symptoms, according to the WHO.
