India now has the world's second highest number of Covid-19 cases; tops Brazil's coronavirus tally

India on Saturday became the world’s second most Covid-19 affected nation, overtaking Brazil.

With more than six million cases, the US retains the pole position, followed by India, Brazil and Russia. India has 40,92,550 Covid-19 positive cases, according to DH's tally, against Brazil’s 40,91,550, according to an unofficial worldwide database of Covid-19 cases. It may take a day for the official record to reflect the trend.

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The gap between the two worst-affected countries was narrowing since India began reporting in excess of 80,000 new cases daily—the highest in India. On Friday, the gap was only 40,000.

India currently reports nearly 30% of the new cases being reported globally. Also, 20% of the world’s daily death count comes from India.

The trend continued on Saturday when India recorded 86,432 new cases (Friday’s count released by the Health Ministry on Saturday early morning) raising the total positive cases to well past the 40 lakh mark. The speed of expansion is such that the last 10 lakh new cases were added in only 13 days. In comparison, it took 16 days for the tally to touch 3 million.

The death toll stands at 69,561 out of which 1089 were added in the last 24 hours.

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Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka account for 52% of all Covid-19 deaths reported across the country in the last 24 hours. Maharashtra alone accounted for 35% of all deaths reported in the last 24 hours. The three states also account for 46% of active cases reported in the same time frame.

The Indian Council of Medical Research released a new testing strategy allowing on-demand testing though it has been left to the states to decide on the modalities.

The council also recommends wide-scale use of the rapid-antigen tests for surveillance and screening inside and outside the containment areas. The gold-standard RT-PCR tests have been recommended for hospitals as well as for SARI (severe acute respiratory illness) and ILI (influenza-like illness) patients.

The ICMR also stressed that no emergency procedure (including deliveries) should be delayed for lack of tests, and pregnant women should not be referred for a lack of testing facility.