Covid-19 infections in India surge past 1.6 mn
UNABATED Daily cases cross 50,000 for first time, but number of recoveries goes up too
NEWDELHI: Daily coronavirus disease (Covid-19) cases in India breached the 50,000 mark on Thursday even as recoveries also shot past 1 million, offering much-needed hope at a time when the contagion is spreading to new regions across the country — and also highlighting the ability of health care systems to cope with, and cure cases of Covid-19.
According to the Union health ministry data, 52,123 Sars-cov-2 infections and 775 fatalities due to the virus were recorded between Wednesday and Thursday. While cases have been increasing by over 45,000 since the past week, Thursday was the first time India crossed 50,000 daily infections.
With the surge, total cases crossed 1.6 million, with the latest 100,000 cases coming in just two days. The death toll, too, surged past 35,000. According to case tracker covid19india.org, India reported 1,601,070 infections and 35,134 fatalities till 7pm on Thursday.
The number of people who have recovered has crossed 1 million. As of Thursday evening, 1,029,069 people out of the total 1,601,070 infected (64.2%) across India had recovered from the disease. There are 536,449 active cases (33.4% of total cases) in the country as of 7pm Thursday.
The gap between recovered patients and the number of active cases has been a key statistic that offers hope in the country’s longdrawn battle against Sars-cov-2. This gap, however, wasn’t always there.
On May 28, the number of active cases in the country outnumbered the recovered patients by at least 23,000. However, the recoveries closed this gap by June 13, and as of Thursday, there are 572,001 more patients who have recovered than those who are infected.
The journey to a million recoveries took 151 days since March 2, but each quarter of that million has come at a faster pace. While the first 250,000 recoveries came in 114 days, the next quarter of a million recoveries took only 17 days. India crossed 750,000 recoveries 11 days later on July 12, while the latest quarter million recoveries have taken just nine days.
Across the country, 64.2% of all Covid-19 patients have now recovered – higher than the global average of 61.9%.