Agencies
India’s total coronavirus cases surged past the 25 million mark on Tuesday, boosted by 263,533 new infections over the last 24 hours, while deaths from COVID-19 rose by a record 4,329.
India becomes the world’s second nation, after the United States, to pass the grim milestone. The country’s total case load is now at 25.23 million, while the death toll is at 278,719, according to health ministry data.
Though India registered a marginal rise in its new Covid-19 cases, it was for a second consecutive day that there were less than 300,000 cases. On Monday, the ministry’s dashboard showed that 281,386 people tested positive for Covid-19 in the preceding 24 hours, making it the first time in several days that India’s Covid-19 tally increased by less than 300,000 fresh infections from a single-day. However, the related daily death toll, which has oscillated between more than 4,000 fatalities per day to nearly 4,000 fatalities a day, was recorded at 4,106.
According to Tuesday’s data, recovered cases have reached 21,596,512 with 422,436 additional discharges, while active cases are at 3,353,765, down by 163,232 from the previous bulletin. Recoveries, active cases and deaths together contribute 85.60%, 13.30% and 1.10% respectively of the national tally.
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In this virtual meeting, the minister will also talk about the planning and implementation of the New Education Policy-2020.
Ramesh Pokhriyal to hold meeting with VCs of Central Universities on Tuesday
The number of samples tested in the last 24 hours also witnessed a rise, with 1,869,223 samples tested in this period, up from 1,573,515 from the 24-hour period before that, the government-run Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) tweeted on Tuesday. Total 318,292,881 samples have been tested till May 17, the ICMR data showed.
The relative fall in India’s daily cases of the coronavirus disease comes on the back of drop in cases in several states and Union territories (UTs), where curbs like lockdowns, mini-lockdowns, corona curfew etc. were imposed, or extended, to break the chain of transmission of the infection. Capital Delhi and the financial hub of Maharashtra, where a lockdown and lockdown-like curbs are in place, respectively, witnessed a rise of 4,524 and 26,616 infections on Monday, as per their health departments’ bulletins. This was for the first time since April 5 that Delhi’s daily count was less than 5,000, while Maharashtra has, in the past, logged a daily caseload of more than 60,000, which has undergone a steady fall in the last few days.
Later in the day on Tuesday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will hold a virtual interaction with officials from Karnataka, Bihar, Assam, Chandigarh, Tamil Nadu, Uttarakhand, Goa, Himachal Pradesh and Delhi to discuss the pandemic situation.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by The Kashmir Monitor staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
