In a major development, India on Saturday recorded 25,152 new coronavirus cases and 347 deaths, taking the total number of infected people since January past the one crore-mark, according to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare’s data.
The country crossed the grim milestone almost eleven months after the first case was reported on January 30 in Thrissur district of Kerala. Since then, the country has recorded 10,004,599 coronavirus cases and 14,51,36 deaths.
The number of infections had crossed the 10 lakh-mark on July 17; 20 lakh on August 7; 30 lakh on August 23; 40 lakh on September 5; 50 lakh on September 16; 60 lakh on September 28; 70 lakh on October 11; 80 lakh on October 29; and 90 lakh on November 20.
While it took over five months to touch 10 lakh, it amassed 60 lakh with August and October.
India has been recording the second-highest numbers of coronavirus cases in the world since August this year, following the US, which had crossed the milestone of one crore infections on November 9.
India also fought through a massive wave of infection in September when the pandemic peaked and recorded a highest single-day spike of 97,894 cases on September 16.
Number of cases have drastically come down since. Notably the recovery rate is 95.46 per cent, while the death rate is 1.45 per cent. The active caseload is also below four lakh for the last 12 days. India is one of the top countries with the highest recovery rate globally.
According to the Health Ministry, the chasm between active cases and recovered cases is continuously widening. As many as 95,50,712 people have recovered while 3,08,751 remain currently active.
A total of 16,00,90,514 samples have been tested for Covid-19 till date. Of these, 11,71,868 samples were tested on Friday, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) said.
Maharashtra continues to be the worst-hit state with 18,88,767 cases till date. Over 76 per cent of the daily new cases are being reported by 10 states and union territory and in the random order they include — Kerala, West Bengal, Chhattisgarh, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Tamil Nadu, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Gujarat.
Over 75 per cent of the deaths are being reported from Maharashtra, West Bengal, Delhi, Kerala, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Punjab, Tamil Nadu, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh.
There is, however, light at the end of the tunnel as India has eight Covid-19 vaccine candidates, including three indigenous vaccines, under different stages of clinical trials which could be ready for authorization in near future.
It includes AstraZeneca and Oxford university developed and Serum Institute of India manufactured Covishield; Covaxin by Bharat Biotech Limited; ZyCoV-D by Zydus Cadila and Russian vaccine candidate Sputnik-V.
The list also contains NVX-CoV2373 by SII, HGCO19 by Geneva, and two unlabeled vaccines — Recombinant Protein Antigen-based vaccine by Biological E Limited and Inactivated rabies vector platform by Bharat Biotech.
The central government plans to vaccinate nearly 30 crore people during the first phase of vaccination. It will be offered to one crore healthcare workers along with 2 crore frontline and essential workers and 27 crore elderly, mostly above the age of 50 years with comorbidities such as diabetes, heart or liver ailments.IANS