New Delhi: India registered a record spike in the number of positive cases and deaths in the past 24 hours, which is not good news even though the country is conducting over 10 lakh daily tests.

On a more worrying note, Punjab’s case fatality rate continues to rise and Maharashtra’s daily positive numbers show no signs of stabilising. It is now a matter of days before India becomes the worst Covid-hit country — even after imposing the most stringent lockdown in the world.

Active cases

There are 9,43,480 active cases in the country right now, of which 96,551 cases were reported in the last 24 hours alone. This is the highest number of cases in one day that the country has ever reported but India has been scaling new highs in terms of positive cases for several weeks now.

Number of deaths

In the last 24 hours, 1,209 people died of Covid-19 in the country, taking the total toll to 76,271. In terms of deaths per million, the toll is among the lowest in the world, but this is because of India’s large population rather than any actual success in reducing mortalities.

Mortality rate

The case fatality rate in Punjab continues to rise relentlessly — it currently stands at 2.98 per cent. This is not only more than the national average of 1.67 per cent, but is also more than Maharashtra, which in absolute numbers has reported the most Covid deaths in the country, so far. 

In the last 24 hours, 11,63,542 tests were conducted in the country, which is impressive, but India’s testing rate per million is still among the worst in the world. It currently stands at 39,127 per million which is less than countries like Brazil, Peru and South Africa. United Arab Emirates (UAE), which is among the highest testing countries, has conducted 7,94,100 tests per million population.

Positivity rate

The positivity rate of India remains above 8 per cent despite a substantial increase in testing. Testing was increased to over 10 lakh daily to bring this rate down to an acceptable 5 per cent, but the rising number of daily positive cases has not let that happen yet.

Recovered cases

A total of 70,880 recoveries have been registered in the last 24 hours in the country. Maharashtra alone has contributed more than 14,000 recoveries while Andhra Pradesh has contributed more than 10,000 single-day recoveries.

With this, the total number of recoveries has touched 35,42,663 taking the recovery rate to 77.65 per cent. Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Uttar Pradesh contributed to 60 per cent of the new recovered cases.

Total cases

With a total of 45,62,414 cases, India has registered the second highest number of cases in the world. This comes at a time when most of the other countries seem to be managing the pandemic far better than before. However, India’s numbers are starting to tell a different story.

High burden states

Maharashtra’s case tally is now inching towards the 10 lakh-mark, and the state’s daily case numbers refuse to stabilise. It registered 23,446 in the last 24 hours, which is over 20 per cent of the country’s total tally in the same period.

Andhra Pradesh has so far recorded 5,37,637 cases — of which 10,125 cases and 68 deaths were reported in the last 24 hours. The state’s case fatality rate is 0.87 per cent and the doubling time is close to 35 days.

Karnataka has over a lakh active cases of Covid among its total 4,30,947 cases. In the last 24 hours, 9,217 cases were reported along with 129 deaths. The case fatality rate stands at 1.61 per cent.

Uttar Pradesh reported about 7,000-odd cases in the past day and 94 deaths. The state’s total case tally stands at 2,92,029 cases. The number of positives seems to be on a slow rise in UP, however, the positivity rate continues within the acceptable range due to the large number of daily tests it conducts.

In Tamil Nadu, less than 49,000 of the 4,86,052 cases are active. This shows that despite the high numbers, the state has managed to stabilise the pandemic to some extent. In the last 24 hours, 5,528 cases and 64 deaths were reported.

Tests and positive cases

Maharashtra is pushing towards the one lakh-mark in testing and may achieve that in the next few days. Meanwhile, Uttar Pradesh is conducting 1.5 lakh tests every day. However,  the number of positive cases in Maharashtra is more than three times that of UP.