By: AswathyNair
INDIA’S coronavirus death toll overtook Britain’s to become the fourth-highest in the world with another single-day record increase in cases on Friday (14).
India reported 1,007 deaths in the past 24 hours. Its total rose to 48,040 deaths, behind the US (163,000), Brazil (105,463) and Mexico (55,293).
As the global toll crossed 751,000, the UK on Thursday saw its official coronavirus death toll lowered by 5,000 to 41,329, after a review of the calculation methodology.
India’s confirmed cases reached 2,461,190 with a single-day spike of 64,553 in the past 24 hours. More than 70 per cent of people infected in India have recovered.
The daily increase in newly reported infections was around 15,000 in the first week of July but jumped to more than 50,000 in the first week of August. The ministry cited its testing efforts, with more than 800,000 tests in a single day, taking cumulative tests to more than 26 million.
Health experts say it needs to be higher, given India’s population of about 1.4 billion.
India’s two-month lockdown imposed nationwide in late March kept infections low. But it has eased and is now largely being enforced in high-risk areas.
The new cases spiked after India reopened shops and manufacturing and allowed hundreds of thousands of migrant workers to return to their homes from coronavirus-hit regions.
