Record 295 die in a day; India may become world’s 5th worst hit today

Record 295 die in a day; India may become world’s 5th worst hit today

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi:06.06.2020

India witnessed its highest single-day death toll in the Covid-19 pandemic so far, with 295 fatalities reported on Friday, while the count of fresh infections remained over 9,000 for the second straight day.

With this, the country’s total number of Covid-19 cases went past Italy’s count of 2,34,531, taking India to the sixth spot among countries with the highest caseloads of the virus. India’s cumulative count of Covid-19 cases stood at 2,36,117 (after adding 7,610 cases not assigned to any state, as per the health ministry website), according to data from state governments.

Deaths from the virus zoomed on Friday after Maharashtra reported as many as 139 fatalities, a bulk of the deaths having occurred earlier. Likewise, Delhi reported 58 deaths and Gujarat 35, while Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh counted 12 each and Bengal reported 11.

Given current trends, India is set to rise to the fifth place in the list of Covid-hit countries on Saturday, overtaking Spain.

For the second consecutive day, India had Thursday reported the third highest number of new cases in the world, ahead of Russia and behind just Brazil and the US.

Among states, Maharashtra continued to report by far the highest number of fresh infections at 2,436, though the number was nearly 500 less than the count on Thursday.

At least six states — Tamil Nadu (1,438 new cases), Gujarat (510), Uttar Pradesh (502), Bengal (427), Chhattisgarh

(106) and Jharkhand (96) — registered their highest single-day rise in cases.

Kerala sees surge in cases

Besides, the surge in infections continued in Delhi, which recorded 1,330 fresh cases, Haryana (316), Madhya Pradesh (234), J&K

(182) and Rajasthan (222). The 139 deaths reported by Maharashtra was its highest singleday toll so far since the outbreak. With this addition, Maharashtra's total death toll was 2849. In the last three days, the state has reported a total of 384 deaths. As per the state government, of the 139 deaths reported on Friday, 27 deaths have occurred in the last two days, while the remaining 112 deaths were from April 21to June 2.

Maharashtra added 2436 new cases on Friday and breached the 80,000 mark for cases and had a total of 80,229 cases. Mumbai equalled its record of highest number of Covid deaths in a 24-hour period with 54 fatalities reported on Friday. The civic officials announced that the doubling rate of the viral cases had improved to 20 days from 12 days on May

15. Gujarat in 24 hours ending 5pm on Friday recorded 510 cases – or one case every three minutes. This was the highest single-day case tally registered so far. The total coronavirus cases in the state has now climbed to 19,119. The state health department bulletin mentioned that 35 Covid-19 patients succumbed to the infection or co-morbidities in the last 24 hours, taking the death tollto1,190.Thedeathsincluded 30 from Ahmedabad, two from Surat and one each from Anand, Bhavnagar and Surat. It was the highest single-day death toll since May18.

Kerala for the first time crossed the three-digit mark in the number of positivecaseson asingleday,with as many as111 positive cases reported on Friday. Taking into account the seriousness of the situation, chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan said the state government had decided to begin rapid antibody testsfrom Saturday for which the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) had supplied14,000 kits.