The number of active coronavirus cases in India crossed the 1 million mark after a record 97,894 cases were reported between Wednesday and Thursday, the Union health ministry’s dashboard showed. In the process, India’s total tally, too, crossed the 5.1 million mark. India has 1,009,976 active cases of Covid-19 in a caseload of 5,118,253. Number of active cases and deaths, meanwhile, stood at 4,025,079 and 83,198 respectively.

On the global front, the number of coronavirus cases stand at over 30 million, with the United States, India, Brazil, Russia and Peru, in that order, being the five worst-affected countries, worldometers data shows. Colombia’s caseload is the sixth-highest, followed by Mexico’s. South Africa, Spain and Argentina complete the list of ten worst-hit countries.

Meanwhile, India’s coronavirus mortality rate at 1.64 per cent is lowest in the world and the Centre is making efforts to reduce it down to less than 1 per cent, Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan told the Rajya Sabha on Thursday. While the total cases may have crossed 50 million, active cases are less than 20 per cent, he added.

Globally, nearly 30 million people have been infected with as many as 939,427 fatalities. The United States continued to the worst affected followed by India and Brazil. India, however, remained on top of the recoveries chart. Robert Redfield, director of the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in the United States, has said face masks offered much better protection against the infection than a vaccine would.