India’s Covid-19 tally crosses 150,000-mark, death toll at 4,337

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The number of cases of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) on Wednesday crossed the 150,000-mark after 6,387 new infections were reported across the country in the last 24 hours, Union health ministry data showed.

This is the sixth day in a row that India has reported more than 6,000 cases of Covid-19. On May 22, 6,088 people tested positive and 6,535 contracted for the respiratory disease on Tuesday.

The country’s death toll stands at 4,337 after 170 people died between Tuesday morning and Wednesday morning. There were 64,425 patients who have recovered and sent home so far.

Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat and Delhi continued to report a rise in Covid-19 cases. Maharashtra’s tally of has reached 54,758 and the death toll due to Covid-19 in the state rose to 1,792.

The number of Covid-19 patients in Maharashtra are now doubling over a period of 14 days unlike every three days earlier and the death rate has been brought down to 3.25% from 7.6% in April, the state’s chief secretary Ajoy Mehta has said

Tamil Nadu is inching towards the 18,000-mark with 17,728 cases and the southern state’s death toll is at 127, data shows. In Gujarat, 915 people have died and 14,821 people have been infected by Sars-Cov-2, the virus which causes the disease.

The national capital of Delhi has witnessed 14,465 infections to date and the number of fatalities due to Covid-19 is 288.

The government has said the doubling rate of infection is 13 days as the country entered the tenth day of the fourth phase of the lockdown to curb the spread of the disease.

The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) on Tuesday removed the price cap of Rs 4,500 on the reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) test, billed as the gold standard for detecting the Covid-19.

States have been given a free hand to negotiate with the approved laboratories and fix the cost of Covid-19 testing.

In a letter written to the states, ICMR director general Dr Balram Bhargava said that as testing capacity and infrastructure had improved significantly since the beginning of the outbreak, the ceiling price fixed earlier was not applicable.

With domestic production being ramped up, the dependence on imported testing kits is also negligible.