New Delhi:
India's COVID-19 tally of cases mounted to 41,13,811 with a record 90,632 people being infected in a day, while the death toll climbed to 70,626 with the novel coronavirus virus claiming 1,065 lives in a span of 24 hours in the country, data updated at 8 am showed.
The country is set to pass Brazil on Monday as the second most affected country by total infections and will be behind only the United States, which has 6.4 million cases and nearly 193,000 deaths.Medical experts said the country was seeing a second wave of the pandemic in some parts of the country, and that case numbers have surged because of increased testing and the easing of restrictions on public movement.
However,with a record 73,642 patients having recuperated in a day, India's COVID-19 recoveries have surged to nearly 32 lakh, pushing the recovery rate to 77.32 per cent while the case fatality rate, one of the lowest globally, has further dropped to 1.72 per cent as on date, the Union Health Ministry said on Sunday.
There are 8,62,320 active cases of coronavirus infection in the country accounting for only 20.96 per cent of the total caseload, it highlighted.
"The spike in the daily recovered COVID-19 patients continues in the country. For the second successive day, India has clocked a record recovery of more than 70,000 patients in a single day," the ministry said.
A total of 73,642 patients have recovered and been discharged from either home or facility isolation or hospitals in a day, according to health ministry data updated at 8 am.
"With this surge in numbers of patients getting recovered on a daily basis, India's recovery rate has been further pushed upwards to 77.32 per cent," the ministry said.
The government will partially restore metro train services in the national capital of New Delhi from Monday.
The pandemic will not finish this year as the virus has spread from big cities to other parts of the country, Randeep Guleria, the director of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in New Delhi, said in an interview with India Today TV.
The number of cases could continue to rise before the curve flattens out, he said.
Sustained efforts by the Centre, state and union territory governments have substantially resulted in higher number of people getting identified at an early stage for the infection through very high levels of testing, it underlined.
This has enabled their timely treatment, guided by the Standard Treatment Protocol for both home or facility isolation and hospitalisation.
The Centre,in collaboration with the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), New Delhi has led the process of continuous upgradation of clinical management skills of the ICU doctors in the dedicated COVID hospitals across the country.
"These measures have resulted in saving more lives. India's COVID-19 case fatality rate, one of the lowest globally, continues to further compress. It is pegged at 1.72 per cent as on date," the ministry said.
The recoveries exceeded active cases of the infection by 23,18,545.
Maharashtra on Sunday recorded the highest single-day spike of 23350 cases, taking the state's COVID-19 tally to 907212, an official said.
The death toll in the state reached 26604 after 328 fresh fatalities were reported in the day, the official said.
The number of discharged patients in the state stands at 644400, while there are 235857 active patients. The number of tests is 4647742, he added.
The national capital recorded 2,914 fresh COVID-19 cases on Friday, the highest single-day spike in 69 days, taking tally to over 1.85 lakh, whilethe death toll jumped to 4,513, authoritiessaid.
This is the fourth successive day in September when over 2,000 new cases have been reported in a day.
Thirteen fatalities have been recorded in the last 24 hours,according to the latest bulletin issued by the Delhi health department.