NEW DELHI: India, on Thursday, July 16, registered the highest single-day spike with 32,695 new COVID-19 cases and 606 deaths reported in the last 24 hours, taking the total count to 9,68,876, according to data released by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW). The country’s total cases include 3,31,146 active cases, 6,12,815 cured/discharged/migrated patients and 24,915 deaths.
As per the Union Health Ministry, Maharashtra remains the worst hit state from the infection with a total of 2,75,640 COVID-19 cases, which includes 1,12,099 active cases, 1,52,613 cured/discharged/migrated patients and 10,928 fatalities. Tamil Nadu, as the second worst-hit state, has a tally of 1,16,993 cases and 3,487 deaths due to COVID-19.
However, the condition of the coronavirus pandemic in Delhi in the last two weeks has improved significantly. The national capital has so far reported a total of 1,16,993 cases, out of which 95,699 of coronavirus patients have been cured. There are 17,807 active cases in the capital city, while 3,487 have succumbed to the deadly virus. The recovery rate in Delhi, however, increased to 81.79%, while the death rate stands at 2.98%. Delhi’s daily figures have been steadily dropping since June 23, when 3,947 cases were reported in a single day. At the time, Delhi was one of the fastest growing states in terms of daily COVID-19 cases, growing at nearly six per cent every day. However, this rate of growth has now dropped to 1.7 per cent. Over the last two weeks, during which the slowdown has happened, Delhi has regularly screened between 20,000 and 25,000 samples every day, much higher than it was doing earlier. Increased testing, in fact, is one of the reasons for a major turnaround in Delhi, when it was surpassing Mumbai as the city with the highest caseload in the country. The increased testing could have enabled early detection of infected patients, and new health facilities, like the Sardar Patel COVID Care Centre and Hospital, have been successful in keeping them isolated so that the disease spread is restrained and controlled. There might be other reasons as well for the drop in cases, but increased testing definitely has played a significant role.
Meanwhile, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has confirmed that 1,27,39,490 samples have been tested for COVID-19 till July 15, out of which 3,26,826 samples were tested yesterday.