India breaches 1-lakh daily COVID-19 case mark

Reaching a grim milestone, India’s COVID-19 daily count crossed the 1 lakh mark on Sunday.

The previous high was achieved on September 16 last year, when 97,894 positive cases were reported in a day. The numbers had started sliding thereafter and the decline continued for five months before a surge, described as a “second wave”, began.

India breached the 1 lakh COVID-19 case mark on a day when Prime Minister Narendra Modi had chaired a review meeting on the present coronavirus situation in the country. 

During the high-level meeting, PM Modi had directed that central teams consisting of public health specialists be sent to Maharashtra, Punjab and Chhattisgarh, where the situation was of serious concern, and said the five-fold strategy of testing, tracing, treatment, COVID-appropriate behaviour and vaccination if implemented with utmost seriousness and commitment would be effective in curbing the pandemic’s spread, according to an official statement.

The reasons for the sharp rise in cases could be mainly attributed to the severe decline in compliance of COVID-appropriate behaviour, especially in the use of masks and social distancing, pandemic fatigue and lack of effective implementation of containment measures at the field level, said the statement released after the prime minister’s review meeting with se

On Saturday, India had reported 93,249 new coronavirus infections, taking the total COVID-19 cases to 1,24,85,509, the Union health ministry data said.

In Maharashtra, the total number of new cases per day has touched 47,913 which is more than double its earlier peak.

Punjab has contributed 4.5 percent of the total cases in the country in the same period but has accounted for 16.3 percent of the total deaths, a matter of serious concern, the statement said.

Similarly, though Chhattisgarh has contributed 4.3 percent of the total cases nationwide in the last 14 days, its contribution in total deaths has exceeded seven percent during the same period.

The 10 high burden states and UTs are contributing 91.4 percent of the total cases and 90.9 percent of the total deaths in the country.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by The Kashmir Monitor staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)