India recorded its first covid-19 case on 30 January and the disease burden started growing. The country’s covid count reached 1 million on July 16 which further doubled to 2 million in three weeks.
Data showed  more than 56,000 cases, taking the total to 19.65 lakh. A total of 13.28 lakh patients have recovered so far, over 40,000 have died.India also being the second most populous country of the world is also recording a fast increase in covid-19 cases.
Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh remain the five states that recorded the highest number of COVID-19 cases. With over 4.6 lakh cases, Maharashtra is the state worst-hit by the outbreak.

The total recoveries of covid-19 patients have jumped to 13,28,336 with 46,121 patients being discharged in the last 24 hours taking the recovery rate to 67.62% . With such consistent increase in recoveries, the gap between recovered patients and active covid-19 cases has reached 7,32,835, the union health ministry said.
“The actual case load of the country is the active cases (5,95,501) which is 30.31% of the total positive cases. They are under medical supervision either in hospitals or in home isolation. The Case Fatality Rate stands at 2.07%,” said the health ministry adding that the active cases as a percentage of total cases have seen a significant drop from 34.17% on 24th July 2020 to 30.31% as on today.
National capital Delhi recorded 1,299 fresh coronavirus cases today, taking the tally to over 1.41 lakh. The number of fatalities mounted to 4,059, with 15 deaths recorded in the last 24 hours, the health authorities said.
“It is not even one percent of population therefore country like India where population is more than 1300 million it is expected to have high number,” said Dr Jugal Kishore, professor and head, department of community medicine, Safdarjung Hospital.
“If we do more test could be more cases will be added. What is important that mortality should be avoided and early detection can do that work by effective management,” he said.

“It won’t be surprising if we surpass the US number  by the year end. We need the state to act now, spend money generously on testing and putting into place location specific lock downs,” he said. public health experts have said that given India’s population size, there will be large number of positive case and preventive measures are the only option for now till a vaccine is available.
.”The virus will continue its march till we get a safe and effective vaccine. The only preventive measure presently available are use of face mask, keeping safe distance, washing hands, respiratory etiquette. These are all connected with changing behaviour of community said Lalit Kant, a scientist and former head of epidemiology and communicable diseases at the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR). It is great that India has been to keep its mortality rate low. This give confidence,” he said.
(With Agency Inputs ).