India’s COVID-19 case tally shot past China, with a total of 85,761 cases, including 53,219 active ones, according to data from the State Health Departments. The death toll nationwide stood at 2,674.
Interactive map of confirmed coronavirus cases in India | State-wise tracker for coronavirus cases, deaths and testing rates
The country has registered over 3,600 cases and over 100 deaths on average everyday since May 8.
According to the Health Ministry, India registered 3,967 more COVID-19 cases and 100 deaths on Friday, taking the total number of cases to 81,970 and the nationwide toll to 2,649.
Stressing the need to focus on high load areas and case fatality management, Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan said while worldwide the total number of cases stood at 42,48,389 with 2,94,046 deaths and the fatality rate pegged at 6.92%, India had managed to keep its fatality rate at 3.23%.
Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Gujarat reported the highest number of cases, with the capital cities of Mumbai, Chennai and Ahmedabad accounting for the most patients.
With 933 persons testing positive, the number of cases in Mumbai rose to 17,512 and the death toll increased to 655 with 34 more deaths, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation said.
With 261 new cases, Ahmedabad’s tally rose to 7,171 while the death toll reached 479 with 14 more patients succumbing to the infection, officials said.
In a release issued by the Ministry, Mr. Vardhan said, “So far, a total of 27,920 people have been cured. And in the last 24 hours, 1,685 patients were cured. This takes the total recovery rate to 34.06%.” It added that the impact of the lockdown was seen on the doubling rate, which improved from 3.4 days in the pre-lockdown week to 12.9 days last week.
The 15th meeting of the high level Group of Ministers (GoM) on COVID-19 was held at Nirman Bhawan on Friday and the group was informed that there are 30 municipal areas which account for 79% of India’s case load.
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It was also informed that domestic manufacturers has reached the production capacity of nearly 3 lakh PPEs per day and about 3 lakh N-95 masks per day which is sufficient to meet the requirement of the country in the near future. “In addition, manufacturing of ventilators by domestic manufacturers has also started and orders have been placed,” the release said.
Meanwhile amid rising cases of COVID-19 and as countries in WHO South-East Asia Region ease lockdowns in a graded manner, World Health Organisation (South East Asia region) on Friday said careful assessment of local epidemiology should guide future actions to combat the virus.
A boy watches migrant workers heading to a railway station in Mumbai on May 15, 2020.
“Countries in the region must continue to take evidence-informed action and conduct careful risk assessments while winding back public health and social measures. The focus should be on local epidemiology of COVID-19, to identify hot-spots and clusters, and the capacity of systems and responders to find, isolate and care for cases, and quarantine contacts,” said Poonam Khetrapal Singh, regional director, WHO South-East Asia.
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Stating that there can be no illusions and that the impact of the will be felt for a long time, Dr. Khetrapal said, “As of Friday morning, the Region has approximately 122,000 cases and 4,000 deaths due to COVID-19. Countries in the region are in various transmission scenarios and the cases are increasing. In every transmission scenario, the core public health measures remain – rapidly detect, test, isolate, care and trace contacts. Moving forward we need to scale up these measures.’’
