With 9,983 new cases of the coronavirus disease and 206 deaths between Sunday and Monday morning, India’s infection tally has risen to 256,611, according to the Union health ministry data.
This is the fifth day in a row that the country has reported more than 9,000 Covid-19 cases in a single day and as restaurants, shopping malls and places of worship were allowed to reopen across most part by strictly adhering to the guidelines laid down by the Centre.
The number of active cases in India stands at 125,381 and the recovery rate at 48.35% with 124,094 people cured of the respiratory disease, according to the health ministry.
Maharashtra has reported 85,975 Covid-19 cases and 3,060 deaths so far. India’s worst-hit state has now overtaken China in terms of the number of infections. China, where the virus first emerged late last year, has a total of 84,191 cases, according to data by America’s Johns Hopkins University.
The number of Covid-19 cases has also surged in Tamil Nadu, where there are 31,667 patients and 269 death so far. Delhi has reported 27,654 infections and the number of fatalities in the national capital stands at 761. Gujarat has 20,070 Covid-19 cases and 1,249 people have succumbed in the western state.
The Centre on Sunday defended the timing of imposition of the lockdown and rejected as “baseless” media reports expressing concerns that it did not take inputs from technical experts while drawing up its Covid-19 strategy.
It asserted that coronavirus is a “new agent” about which not everything is known and also said it is “fine-tuning” its strategy based on emerging knowledge and experience on the ground.
The health ministry said in a statement that the decision on the lockdown was taken due to the rapid escalation of Covid-19 cases.
“The doubling rate of cases had dropped to a low level, pointing toward a dangerous trajectory of high caseload and high mortality, as experienced by many western countries. The possibility that our health systems could soon be overwhelmed with Covid-19 patients seemed to be real,” it said.
There was a unanimous consensus on the lockdown among all state governments, it said. The government has already shared information on the impact of the lockdown and other restrictions to avert lakhs of infections and thousands of deaths, the ministry said.
“These apprehensions and allegations are unfounded and baseless. The government is constantly in consultation with experts for technical and strategic inputs, scientific ideas and domain-specific guidance to address the Covid-19 pandemic,” it said about reports in a section of the media expressing concern about the government excluding the views of technical experts.
Globally, there are more than 7 million Covid-19 cases and the number of people who have died due to the disease is 402,709, according to Johns Hopkins’ coronavirus tracker.
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