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India COVID-19 tally surges past 5.4 million

Monday, 21 September 2020 10:24 PM [ Last Update: Monday, 21 September 2020 10:24 PM ]

Munawar Zaman
Press TV, New Delhi

The COVID-19 pandemic has reached unprecedented levels in India; the country now has the second highest coronavirus caseload in the world after the United States. Maharashtra remains the state with the highest number of cases where more than one million people have contracted the virus. Maharashtra is followed by Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, and Uttar Pradesh each with thousands of cases. Medics are struggling to cope up with the situation as around 100,000 new infections and over 1,000 deaths are reported daily.

India is now the second country in the world after the US with more than 5 million cumulative cases of coronavirus. With the cases rising rapidly every day India is expected to surpass the US within weeks. The country recorded 97,500 cases on September 11 and since then has added more than a million cases this month alone.

with the lockdown restrictions being eased in many parts of the country, experts warn that India’s COVID-19 fatality rate could increase in the coming week. However, the government says that it has no plans to re-impose lockdown measures as the recovery rates are going at more than 80 percent.

With such a huge number of daily cases, India’s already ailing healthcare sector is failing to contain the situation as the hospitals remain overwhelmed. Moreover, many agree that the government instructions are being flouted instead of being observed seriously.

India’s COVID-19 fatality rate is 1.6 percent. While almost 4.3 million people have recovered from the virus based on government data, experts warn that the increase in cases is inevitable. India has crossed the World Health Organization’s benchmark of testing more than one million samples per day.

Most of the fatalities are reported from big cities such as Mumbai, New Delhi, Chennai and parts of southern India, which accounts for 60 percent of the total cases. The government has eased some restrictions and opened some sectors to bring the economy back on track, but schools and colleges would remain closed till September 30.

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