From Our Bureau
9th SEPTEMBER 2020
India witnessed a big spurt with 89,706 fresh COVID-19 positive cases reported on Wednesday, taking the country’s cumulative cases to 43,70,128. The death toll rose to 73,890, with 1,115 fatalities recorded in the last 24 hours.
Incidentally, India has moved to the second place now in total number of COVID-19 positive cases among the countries across the world. It ranks next to the United States in overall number of cases. India now ranks third in total number of fatalities, after the United States and Brazil, which occupy the top two slots. Moreover, the daily tally of cases and deaths in India is the highest among all the countries across the globe now.
In the last 24 hours, India has also scaled a new high of recoveries. The total number of recovered patients in a single day has surged to a record 74,894. With this, the total number of recoveries has touched 33,98,844, taking the Recovery Rate to 77.77 percent.
The total number of recoveries on a weekly basis has increased from 1,53,118 during the third week of July to 4,84,068 in the first week of September 2020.
Of the total of 89,706 new cases reported in the last 24 hours, Maharashtra has alone contributed more than 20,000 and Andhra Pradesh has contributed more than 10,000. Almost 60 percent of the new cases are reported from only 5 States.
The total number of active cases in the country stands at 8,97,394 as on date, accounting for 20.54 percent of total cases. Maharashtra is leading the tally with more than 2,40,000 whereas Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh follow with more than 96,000 each. Five States of Maharashtra, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu contribute 61 percent of the total active cases.
Of the total of 1,115 deaths registered in the past 24 hours, Maharashtra has reported 380 deaths followed by Karnataka with 146 deaths, whereas Tamil Nadu has logged 87 deaths.
On the day when India has registered the highest single day recoveries of nearly 75,000, it continues to set a record in testing too. More than 11.5 lakh COVID samples have been tested in the last 24 hours.
India is one of the few countries that have reported very high numbers of daily testing. The daily testing capacity has already crossed 11 lakh. With 11,54,549 tests conducted in the last 24 hours, India has further strengthened the national diagnostic capacity. With this achievement, the cumulative tests have crossed 5.18 crore (5,18,04,677).
Timely diagnosis through higher levels of country-wide testing has furnished valuable opportunities to isolate or hospitalize the positive cases adequately in advance for appropriate treatment. This in turn has facilitated lower mortality rates (1.69 percent today) and speedy recovery.
Expanded diagnostic lab network and facilitation for easy testing across the country through various calibrated measures have given a substantial boost. Building on this achievement, the Tests Per Million (TPM) have seen a sharp increase to 37,539. It continues to maintain the constant upward trend.
From one testing lab in Pune in January 2020, today the country stands strengthened with 1,678 labs including 1,040 labs in the government sector and 638 private labs These include: Real-Time RT PCR based testing labs: 854 (Govt: 469 + Private: 385), TrueNat based testing labs: 703 (Govt: 537 + Private: 166) and CBNAAT based testing labs: 121 (Govt: 34 + Private: 87). (eom)
