Cases again rise in India, tally crosses 80 lakh-mark

New Delhi, Oct 29: India, after witnessing a drop in new COVID cases for a couple of days, once again reported a single-day spike of nearly 50,000 infections, surpassing the overall tally beyond 8 million-mark.
The country recorded 49,881 fresh cases, pushing the caseload to 80,40,203, the government data update read on Thursday morning.
In the same duration, 56,480 people were cured across the country, taking the total recoveries to 73,15,989 till date.
On a positive note, the world’s second-most populous country has reported fewer than 60,000 cases and 1,000 deaths for 11 straight days.
Fatalities due to the pandemic have now mounted to 1,20,527 till date across the nation after 517 more lives were claimed by the highly contagious virus since Wednesday. However, active cases have come down further by 7,116 since past one day and the number now stands at 6,03,687. In percentage, the active cases now stand at 7.51 per cent, discharged cases now at 90.99 per cent and the fatalities at 1.50 per cent of the total case count of the country so far.
According to the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), there were 10,75,760 samples tested for COVID on Wednesday, whereas till date the total number of COVID tests conducted now stand at 10,65,63,440.
India — the second-worst COVID-hit nation in terms of cases — had crossed 1 million-mark on July 17, 20-lakh mark on August 7, 30 lakh on August 23 and 40 lakh on September 5, 50 lakh on September 16, 60 lakh on September 28 and 70 lakh just 18 days ago on October 11.
Of the freshly reported deaths, Maharashtra accounted for 91 of the day’s fatalities followed by 60 from West Bengal, 55 each from Chhattisgarh and Karnataka, 40 from Delhi, 35 from Tamil Nadu, 27 from Kerala, 20 from Punjab and 18 each from Andhra Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh.
The World Health Organization (WHO) declared the COVID-19 outbreak a pandemic on March 11. Till date, more than 44.79 million people have been infected with the coronavirus worldwide, with over 1.17 million fatalities. Exactly 13 days later, India announced a stringent 21-day nationwide lockdown from March 25, however, as the cases kept rising, the lockdown was extended till May 30 after which the restrictions were gradually lifted in order to revive the battered economy.
Even as the globe is battling the pandemic with full vigour, all hopes are pinned on a potential vaccine, hope for which has risen post Serum Institute of India chief Adar Poonawala’s claim that a vaccine could be ready as early as December and the first batch of 100 million doses could be available by the second or third quarter of 2021.

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