NEW DELHI : The death toll due to COVID-19 rose to 7,466 and the number of cases climbed to 2,66,598 in the country after it registered 266 fatalities and a record single-day spike of 9,987 cases till Tuesday 8 am, according to the Union Health Ministry data.
Last week, Maharashtra surpassed China’s tally of around 84,000 cases as the country crossed the 2.5 lakh mark. India now has more than 2.66 lakh cases — recording 9,000-plus cases for the seventh consecutive day. India is the fifth worst-hit nation by the COVID-19 pandemic after the US, Brazil, Russia and the UK. The country surpassed Spain a few days back.
The rise in cases comes at a time when the country has stepped out of a 75-day coronavirus lockdown with malls, religious places and offices opening in several parts of the country under strict conditions. Several states like Haryana, Jammu and Kashmir, Assam, Haryana, Karnataka, Chhattisgarh and Tripura among others have been showing a spurt in cases.
Out of the total 7,466 fatalities reported till Tuesday 8 am, Maharashtra tops the tally with 3,169 deaths followed by Gujarat with 1,280 deaths, Delhi with 874, Madhya Pradesh with 414, West Bengal with 405, Tamil Nadu with 286, Uttar Pradesh with 283, Rajasthan with 246 and Telangana with 137 deaths.
The death toll reached 75 in Andhra Pradesh, 64 in Karnataka and 53 in Punjab. Jammu and Kashmir has reported 45 fatalities due to the coronavirus disease, while 39 deaths have been reported from Haryana, 31 from Bihar, 16 from Kerala, 13 from Uttarakhand, nine from Odisha and seven from Jharkhand.
Himachal Pradesh and Chandigarh have registered five COVID-19 fatalities each and Assam and Chhattisgarh have recorded four deaths each so far. Out of the total 7,466 fatalities, Maharashtra tops the tally with 3,169 deaths followed by Gujarat with 1,280 deaths, Delhi with 874.
The highest number of confirmed cases in the country are from Maharashtra at 88,528 followed by Tamil Nadu at 33,229, Delhi at 29,943, Gujarat at 20,545, Uttar Pradesh at 10,947, Rajasthan at 10,763.
Gujarat reported 470 new corona virus patients on Tuesday, 331 of them in Ahmedabad, taking the number of cases in the state to 21,044, the health department said. With 33 COVID-19 patients dying on Tuesday, the death toll rose to 1,313, it said.
Maharashtra, the country’s biggest corona virus hotspot, today logged more than 90,000 cases, with state capital Mumbai alone at 51,000 cases. The total of 90,787 however includes the 42,638 people who have already recovered from the highly infectious disease.
According to figures supplied by the Maharashtra government, 2,259 people tested positive over the last 24 hours, a quarter of the record 9,987 cases reported across the country. The number of deaths went up by 120 in the last 24 hours, taking the total to 3,289, which is also the highest among states.
Financial capital Mumbai now has 51,100 cases, 1,760 patients are dead. The silver lining, the experts said, was that the cases were plateauing in Dharavi, Asia’s largest slum.
The spike in numbers comes days after Maharashtra took another cautious step towards easing the lock down, allowing all government offices to function with 15 per cent employees last week. Private offices started functioning from yesterday with 10 per cent staff strength.
(Bureau Report with Agency Inputs ).
[1]
