COVID-19 cases in India cross 81 lakh as 48,268 people test positive

New Delhi: India reported 48,268 new cases of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19), slightly down from 48,648 a day before, and 551 related deaths, the Union health ministry’s data showed on Saturday morning, which has taken the country’s tally to 8,137,119. There were 582,649 active cases of Covid-19, the health ministry’s dashboard showed at 8am. The active caseload fell below 600,000 on Friday for the first time in nearly three months. It was 595,000 last on August 6.

The total recovered cases stand at 7,432,829 as 59,454 patients were cured between Friday and Saturday morning. “India continues to be the topmost country with the maximum number of recovered cases globally,” the health ministry has stressed. The difference between active and recovered cases stands at 6,850,180 on Saturday and the rate of recovery is at 91.34%.

New Covid-19 infections in Delhi on Friday set yet another single-day record, which was for the fourth day in a row, prompting concerned Union home ministry has called for a meeting on Monday to discuss the issue. The positivity rate also continued to rise at alarming levels with a tenth of all tests in the past 24 hours returning positive results, highlighting what is clearly the third and worst wave yet of the outbreak in the Capital.

There were 57,386 Covid-19 patients who recovered and were discharged on Friday and 80% of them were observed to be concentrated in 10 states and Union territories. Kerala contributed the maximum with more than 8,000 to the single-day recoveries followed by Maharashtra and Karnataka with more than 7,000 recoveries each.

There were 48,648 new cases on Friday and the health ministry said that 78% of these are from 10 states and Union territories. Kerala is still reporting a very high number of new cases with more than 7,000 cases followed by Maharashtra and Delhi with more than 5,000 cases each.

There were 563 deaths reported on Friday morning and of these, 81% were concentrated in 10 states and Union territories. Maharashtra has reported the highest single-day deaths with 156 fatalities followed by West Bengal with 61 cases.

The health ministry has said India has performed remarkably on fulfilling the World Health Organization’s (WHO’s) advise of 140 tests every day per million population. “In another row of achievements, 35 States/UTs have exceeded the advised number of tests. The national average of tests per day per million population stands at 844. The figure for Delhi and Kerala has exceeded 3,000,” it said.

India remains the second worst-hit country after the United States, which has 9,043,957 Covid-19 cases so far. Globally, there more than 45 million people have contracted the disease and 1,188,151 have died till date.