India has registered a record single-day spike of 24,879 Covid-19 cases and 487 deaths in the last 24 hours, but the government believes there’s no sign of community transmission in the country yet.
“The Health Minister (Harsh Vardhan) clearly said after the GoM that India has not reached the stage of community transmission. In some geographical areas, there have been localised outbreaks,” said Rajesh Bhushan, Officer on Special Duty in the Union Health Ministry. Bhushan added, “We should not forget that in our country, 49 districts alone account for 80 per cent of Covid-19 cases. In a country of over 733 districts, if 49 districts account for 80% cases, then it is not justified to talk about community transmission.”
Wherever there are active cases, if the prescribed protocol is followed, in three days close contacts of active cases can be traced and tracked, he said. “So in such a situation in which you can trace and track close contacts of active cases, talking about community transmission is not justified,” he said.
India registered a record single-day surge of 24,879 Covid-19 cases, taking the total tally to 7,67,296. The death toll climbed to 21,129 with 487 new fatalities. The country recorded Covid-19 recovery rate of 62.09%, with the number of patients who have recovered from the viral infection surpassing the number of coronavirus patients in the country. The number of Covid-19 active cases stands at 2,06,588. The number of recovered cases is 1.75 times (almost twice) the number of active coronavirus cases at present.
Maharashtra remained the number one contributor to the rising number of Corona cases in the country with the addition of 6,875 new cases, while 219 deaths took the toll to 9,667. Maharashtra’s Covid-19 tally rose to 2,30,599. As per the health department, 4,067 patients were also discharged from hospitals, taking the total recoveries to 1,27,259 in the state. There are 93,673 active cases in the state, it said. So far, 12,22,487 people have been tested for Covid-19 in Maharashtra.
With a recovery rate of over 72% and doubling rate of nearly 30 days, the Covid-19 situation in the national capital has shown remarkable improvement in recent days because of joint efforts, the Union Home Ministry said. A total of 2,187 fresh Covid-19 cases, 4,027 patients were discharged and 45 deaths were reported in Delhi in the last 24 hours. The total number of cases in the national capital is now at 1,07,051 including 82,226 recovered/discharged/migrated patients which took the tally to 21,567 active cases and 3,258 deaths. Delhi reported a record 76.81% of recovery rate.
West Bengal recorded the highest one-day jump of 1,088 new Covid-19 cases, 27 deaths and 535 recoveries in the last 24 hours. The total number of cases in the state has risen to 25,911 including 16,826 discharged and 854 deaths. In Kerala, 339 new Covid-19 cases and 149 recoveries were reported. Amongst the new cases, 117 returned from abroad, 74 from other states and 133 contracted the disease through local contacts. There are 6,534 Covid-19 positive cases in the state of which 2,795 are active cases. Meanwhile, Tamil Nadu records 4,231 fresh coronavirus cases, tally rises to 1,26,581; death toll reaches 1,765 with 65 more fatalities.
In Punjab five more people died from Corona, raising the death toll to 183 while 234 fresh cases pushed the state’s infection tally to 7,140. The new fatalities were reported in Amritsar, Sangrur, Ludhiana, Kapurthala and Gurdaspur. Meanwhile, Haryana reported five more Coronavirus deaths as 679 new cases took the total number of infections to 19,369. Madhya Pradesh recorded 305 new Covid-19 cases, taking the count to 16,341, while five more patients succumbed to the infection. With this, the death toll went up to 634.
In Jammu & Kashmir, 240 new cases and 128 recoveries were reported in the last 24 hours. The total number of positive cases in the union territory stands at 9,501 including 5,695 recovered and 154 deaths.