New Delhi, April 15:
India reported over 2 lakh coronavirus disease (Covid-19) cases on Thursday, the highest single-day spike so far since the pandemic broke out. The single-day spike of 2,00,739 cases comes a day after 1,84,372 Covid-19 cases were recorded on Wednesday in the last 24 hours, according to Union health ministry data. The country had first clocked over 1 lakh Covid-19 cases in a single day on April 5, merely 10 days ago. The record surge in cases in a little more than a week comes in the backdrop of the deadlier second wave of Covid-19 that the country is now struggling with.
Registering a steady increase for the 36th day in a row, the active cases have increased to 14,71,877 comprising 10.46 per cent of the total infections, while the national Covid-19 recovery rate has dropped to 88.31 per cent.
India’s cumulative Covid-19 case tally has now crossed the 14 million mark, with the Union health ministry dashboard showing 14,074,564 cases at 8am on Thursday. Casualties rose to 173,123 with more than 1,000 new fatalities recorded for the second in a row. When India first clocked over 1 lakh Covid-19 cases on April 5, the nationwide infection tally was at 12,589,067. This time, however, it took merely 10 days to breach its earlier single-day spike record.
More than 114 million vaccine doses have been administered, according to latest data from India’s health ministry.
After seeing new infections ebb at the beginning of this year, Covid-19 cases in India began spiking up in March. The latest wave that shows no sign of receding has begun to overwhelm hospitals and crematoriums, triggered a shortage of vaccines and forced many part of the country to impose lockdown-like restrictions this month to break the chain of viral transmission.
The active caseload was at its lowest at 1,35,926 on February 12 and highest at 10,17,754 on September 18, 2020. The number of people who have recuperated from the disease surged to 1,24,29,564, while the case fatality rate has further dropped to 1.23 per cent, the data stated.
India’s Covid-19 tally had crossed the 20-lakh mark on August 7 last year, 30 lakh on August 23, 40 lakh on September 5 and 50 lakh on September 16. It went past 60 lakh on September 28, 70 lakh on October 11, crossed 80 lakh on October 29, 90 lakh on November 20 and surpassed the one-crore mark on December 19.
According to the ICMR, 26,20,03,415 samples have been tested up to April 14 with 13,84,549 samples being tested on Wednesday.
Earlier this week, India fast-tracked approvals for Covid-19 vaccines already approved in some developed countries to have a wider pool of shots in a race to curb the outbreak. The move effectively opened the door to shots made by Pfizer Inc. and Moderna Inc., and came a day after the Narendra Modi-led government granted emergency use approval for Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine – third shot that can be used in the nation’s inoculation program.
