NEW DELHI: An unprecedented surge in the
Covid-19 pandemic in India on Thursday saw the number of fresh cases as well as deaths from the virus touch record highs. New infections during the day went past 66,000 while fatalities touched 1,008.
Fresh cases rose to 66,037, beating the previous single-day high of 65,410 cases recorded on August 8, as per TOI’s data collated from state governments. With this, India’s total caseload crossed 24 lakh. This was the second time that fatalities had crossed 1,000 in a day. Thursday’s count was just higher than 1,007 deaths recorded on August 9.
Meanwhile, India now has the second highest count of active
Covid-19 cases in the world after the US, according to the latest data from Johns Hopkins University.
The number of active cases India has gone past the count in Brazil after that country showed a sharp drop in active Covid-19 cases, as per Johns Hopkins data. Brazil had the second highest number of active cases till a few days ago.
India’s active cases continue to rise, although at a much slower pace this month as compared with the second half of July. The Johns Hopkins website on Thursday afternoon showed India's active cases at 6,53,622 while the corresponding number in Brazil was 5,54,356. The US had by far the most active cases in the world at 32,76,125. As per TOI’s data, by late Thursday night, India’s active cases had risen to nearly 6.64 lakh.
Thursday’s surge in deaths was led by Maharashtra, which reported 413 Covid-19 fatalities, its highest toll for a day so far, taking the state’s total deaths to 19,063. Earlier, the highest deaths reported in a day were 390 on August 9.
Expand
The state attributed this jump in fatalities to its data-cleaning exercise. Of the 413 deaths, 288 are from the last 48 hours, the state said, 74 are from last week and the remaining 51 are from a period before that. The state also continued to add a large number of new Covid19 cases (11,813), taking its total cases to 5,60,126 by breaching the 5.5 lakh mark. Mumbai added 1,200 or 10.1% of the cases for Thursday. Pune division recorded the highest cases (3,034) and deaths (118) in the state.
While none of the four worst-hit states — Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka — reported a record high jump in cases on Thursday, the cumulative count touched an all-time high on account of sharp rises in several other states.
The most worrisome spike was in Assam, which reported as many as Assam 4,593 on Thursday. Before this, the state’s highest count of daily cases was less than 3,000. Other states that registered their highest single-day addition of cases were Bengal (2,997 new cases), Odisha (1,981), Rajasthan (1,264), Kerala (1,564), Madhya Pradesh (1,014) and Goa (570).
Tamil Nadu reported 119 Covid-19 deaths for the second consecutive day on Thursday. The state added 5,835 fresh cases taking the case tally to 3,20,355. The cumulative death toll stood at 5,397. On Thursday, 53,499 people were still under treatment compared to 52,929 on Wednesday. While nearly 56% of the patients under treatment were in the northern districts, a quarter of them were in the south.
With the biggest single-day jump of 1,264 new infections, Rajasthan’s Covid-19 tally rose to 57,364 on Wednesday. Eleven people lost their lives to Covid-19 taking the state's toll to 833.
Eight Covid-19 patients in Assam died on Thursday after a record high of over 1.43 lakh tests being conducted on Wednesday. The state recorded the highest single-day spike of 4,593 Covid-positive cases in the last 24 hours. Confirmed cases in the last 24 hours constituted just a little over 3% of the total samples tested.
In Bihar, after fighting with Covid-19 for almost a month, 1980 batch retired IAS officer Manoj Kumar Shrivastava succumbed to the virus on Thursday morning. Shrivastava is among 10 deaths reported in Bihar on Thursday, taking the toll to 484. The state also saw 3,906 new Covid-19 cases reported on Thursday, taking the tally to 94,459. However, with 62,507 recoveries, the number of active cases now stands at 31,466.