The disease is now widespread outside metropolitan areas, said Bhramar Mukherjee, professor at the School of Public Health, University of Michigan. “We need commitment and collective sacrifice from people of rural India to keep contact diaries, symptom diaries, and to not feel stigmatized if they test positive or have symptoms, so that the disease does not infest villages like an enemy in the dark.”

There are 5,95,501 active cases of coronavirus infection in the country presently which contribute to 30.31 per cent of the total cases.

The fatality rate has further dropped to 2.07 per cent, the data stated.

This is the eighth consecutive day that COVID-19 cases have increased by more than 50,000.
Of the 904 fresh deaths reported, 334 are from Maharashtra, 112 from Tamil Nadu, 100 from Karnataka, 77 from Andhra Pradesh, 61 from West Bengal, 40 from Uttar Pradesh, 29 from Punjab, 23 from Gujarat, 17 from Madhya Pradesh, 13 each from Rajasthan and Telangana, 11 from Delhi and Nine each from Jammu and Kashmir and Odisha.

“A staffer whose PPE caught fire ran out of the ward to douse it but the fire spread rapidly to the whole ward,” said Rajesh Bhatt, additional chief fire officer of the Ahmedabad Fire and Emergency Services.