India’s Covid-19 tally nears 82,000-mark with over 3,900 new cases in 24 hrs

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The number of coronavirus disease cases (Covid-19) in India neared the 82,000-mark on Friday as 3,967 new patients and 100 deaths were recorded in the last 24 hours, Union health ministry data showed.

There were 81,970 Covid-19 patients with 51,401 active cases and 27,919 recoveries, according to the health ministry’s dashboard. The number of deaths across the country stood at 2,649, it showed.

More than 4.4 million people have contracted Covid-19 and 302,418 have died across the world, according to John Hopkins University’s tracker.

In India, Maharastra has more than 27,000 Covid-19 patients, followed by Tamil Nadu at 9,647, Gujarat 9,591 and Delhi 8,470 cases of the coronavirus disease.

The 14 states and Union territories that have not reported any Covid-19 cases in the past 24 hours till Thursday are Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Arunachal Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Chandigarh, Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Goa, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Jharkhand, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Puducherry, and Telangana.

Daman and Diu, Sikkim, Nagaland and Lakshadweep have not reported any Covid-19 case to date.

Union health minister Dr Harsh Vardhan said on Thursday that the number of Covid-19 tests carried out in India crossed two million on Thursday, doubling in 12 days.

“Our target was to cross 2 million tests by the end of May, but we have done it two weeks ahead of our goal. With 504 laboratories, including 359 government laboratories and 145 private ones, doing Covid-19 tests, we have also crossed the daily capacity of 100,000 tests,” Harsh Vardhan said.

At this level, India has tested around 1,540 people per million of its population, much higher than the 94.5 per million population it was testing in late March but still far lower than the tests per million in other countries.

In the US, Spain, Russia, the UK, and Italy, the corresponding numbers are 31,080; 52,781; 42,403; 32,691; and 45,246 respectively.

The doubling rate of infections has slowed to 13.9 days, from 11.1 days over the past 14 days, the minister said.

“The fatality rate is 3.2%, and the recovery rate has further improved to 33.6%, up from 32.83% on Wednesday. There are 3% of active cases in ICUs, of which 0.39% are on ventilators and 2.7% on oxygen support,” he added.

Covid-19 is diagnosed using Reverse Transcription Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR) assay, which is the only diagnostic test for Covid-19 approved by the WHO.

RT-PCR is used for the qualitative detection of genetic material called Ribonucleic Acid (RNA) from Sars-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, and is the most accurate diagnostic test.

Other tests such as rapid antibody and Elisa tests are surveillance tools that cannot test for current infection.

The numbers come ahead of the scheduled end of the fourth phase of the nationwide lockdown on May 17.