India’s Covid count set to cross 1.5 lakh, fresh cases dip to 5.5k
by TNN
Representative photo: PTI
NEW DELHI: India’s count of Covid-19 cases was set to cross the 1.5 lakh mark, even as the number of fresh infections reported on Tuesday dropped slightly to its lowest number in the past six days at 5,502 while the deaths related to the virus rose by 172, the second highest single-day toll so far.
By late Tuesday night, India had recorded 1,47,758 coronavirus cases while the death toll from the pandemic was 4,345, as per reports from state governments. The number of people who had recovered from the virus had risen to 64,239.
With a surge in cases, Mumbai was among the world’s four cities recording the highest number of cases in the past four-five days, data reveals. The other cities were Moscow, Sao Paulo and New York.
While Mumbai, by far the worst-hit Indian city, recorded a drop in cases on Tuesday, the death toll climbed by 39 on Tuesday to 1,065. Maharashtra reported 97 Covid-19 deaths, the highest in a single day so far. With that, Maharashtra’s death toll rose to 1,792. State officials claimed 62 of the deaths took place last week and were being scrutinised by the death review committee.
On Tuesday, the city added 2,091 cases, taking the overall count of cases to 54,758. Mumbai added 1,002 new cases — both the city and the state registering a drop in cases as compared to the past few days.
In fact, the six states worst-hit by the Covid-19 epidemic — Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Delhi, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh — all recorded a drop in cases as compared to the previous day.
However, the count rose in other states. Bihar recorded 231 new cases, Assam 95 and Kerala 67, the latter being the highest single-day number for the state. The surge in cases was high in the hill states as well, with J&K reporting 91, Uttarakhand 44 and Himachal 24 fresh infections. New cases were recorded in a number of northeastern states, including Nagaland (1), Manipur (3) and Tripura (11).
In Tamil Nadu, after medical experts did some straight-talking on Tuesday, the state said it was drawing up plans to cocoon people most vulnerable to Covid-19 as 646 fresh cases were reported in the state, 509 of them in Chennai. Nine more deaths were reported, taking the TN toll to 127.
At a meeting of the medical experts committee chaired by chief minister Edappadi K Palaniswami, doctors warned that unless testing was increased to identify and treat people in the early stages of the infection, Chennai would end up with two lakh cases and more than 1,400 fatalities by June-end.
Gujarat recorded 27 more Covid-related deaths in the past 24 hours, taking the state's death toll to 915. The state has second highest deaths in the country after Maharashtra which has recorded 1,792 mortalities.
National hotspot Ahmedabad continued to report the highest deaths in state as 23 more people succumbed to the coronavirus.
Gujarat recorded 361 new cases out of which 251 were from Ahmedabad, 36 from Surat and 31 from Vadodara. With the new cases, there are now eight districts with 100 or more Covid-19 positive cases in the state.
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