Yahoo News India sets world-record with 83,883 new Covid-19 infections
India today announced a world-record of 83,883 new Covid-19 cases in one day.
The country also recorded 1,043 fatalities linked to coronavirus in the past 24 hours, taking its total deaths to more than 67,000.
India become the third country to reach a million Covid cases on July 17, after the United States in April and Brazil in June.
The number of confirmed cases in India is now 3,853,406 - slightly behind Brazil's total of 3,997,865, which is second only to the United States. The US suffered its worst day for new cases on July 16, with 77,255.
India’s latest Covid figures come after authorities there said they were looking to reopen the economy, following Monday's announcement that GDP had decreased by 23.9 per cent from April to June.
The country of 1.4 billion has been easing restrictions after a shutdown of more than two months.
Urban metro trains can resume service from next Monday and up to 100 people will be allowed to congregate for events including religious and political functions later in September.
Government decisions to reopen society have met with sharp criticism in some quarters because of the mountain of new coronavirus cases.
More than 800,000 cases are considered “active” in India and the worst-affected state, Maharashtra, has added more than 17,000 in a day.
The virus has spread even to remote areas such as the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, where members of a tribe tested positive last week.
In poorer states, India's federal government has deployed special teams to monitor the situation.
Dr Gagandeep Kang, an infectious diseases expert at the Christian Medical College at Vellore in southern India, told the Daily Mail: “This was to be expected. It was inevitable that the numbers would climb.”
Dr Kang added that insufficient data was still hampering public health efforts.
Indian authorities have pointed to the recovery rate among virus patients, now more than 76 per cent, as evidence of the success of its policies.
Although the country carries out nearly 100,000 tests per day, its testing rate of around 32,000 per million is still far lower than in the US.
“A case becomes a case because you detected an infection. It doesn't actually tell you about the disease,” said Dr Kang.
“What we really need to be concerned about is the disease, whom is it affecting and how are we handling it.”
Kumar Sanjay Krishna, the chief secretary of Assam, one of the worst-hit states, attributed the increasing number of cases to more testing, the opening of the economy and complacency.
“People are not following precautionary steps and are violating the Covid protocols,” he stated on Twitter.
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