India reports over 2 lakh new cases, more than 1,000 deaths in single day

India on Thursday reported over 2 lakh new coronavirus cases – a record high since the pandemic broke out in January 2020.

This is the fifth straight day when India has recorded over 1.5 lakh new cases and the ninth consecutive day of over 1 lakh cases.

The country now has 1,40,74,564 cases. The toll jumped by 1,038 to 1,73,123.

With 1,038 people dying in the same time span, the total fatalities rose to 1,73,123.

Globally, the coronavirus has infected more than 13.80 crore people and killed 29,71,181 since the pandemic broke out in December 2019, according to the Johns Hopkins University.

More than 7.81 crore people have recovered from the infection.

Virologist Dr Shahid Jameel tells News18 that the second wave of the coronavirus pandemic will continue in India till May-end and the number of new daily cases may rise to about 3 lakh.

“What is really scary is the rate at which cases are increasing,” he tells News18. “If you look at the growth in active cases, that’s about 7% per day. That’s a very high rate of increase. Unfortunately, if this rate keeps on, we will be looking at somewhere around 3 lakh cases per day. And this is what some modellers are suggesting.”

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