Sunday, 18 April 2021 | PNS | New Delhi
Record over 2.6L cases in a day; Delhi, Maha too see highest rise
India added nearly 10 lakh cases in just seven days ending April 17 as the country recorded over 2.6 lakh new Covid-19 infections and a record 1,493 deaths during the last 24 hours on Saturday.
The addition of nearly 25,000 new cases over the previous day count amounts to a rise of nearly 10 per cent, which shows that the growth of Covid-19 has more than doubled during the last two weeks.
Maharashtra, Delhi, Karnataka, Kerala, Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh are registering newer peaks and the situation remaining equally grim in the rest of the country.
The country had 1.52 lakh daily cases on April 10 when the death count stood at 838. A relative comparison shows that the death rate is steadily climbing up vis-a-vis new infections.
Amid the alarming rise in new infections and deaths, the country is battling a paucity of hospital beds, oxygen supply, ventilators, and life-safe antiviral drug Remdesivir. A majority of the State have also complained of a shortage of vaccines and shut down several vaccination centres.
Several States have belatedly imposed lockdown restriction to tackle the surge, but it is too early to see if these are going to work effectively at this stage on the ground.
Delhi and Maharashtra recorded their biggest single-day rise in coronavirus cases since the beginning of the pandemic in January 2020. The national Capital registered over 24,375 new cases, taking its tally to 8,27,998, while Maharashtra’s count rose to 3,7,70,707 with 67,123 new infections. The death count in Delhi rose to 11,960 with 167 new fatalities on Saturday.
Maharashtra’s death tally climbed to 59,970 with the addition of 419 fatalities during the last 24 hours.
For Delhi, the previous highest spike was recorded on Friday when 19,486 cases and 141 deaths were reported in 24 hours. Maharashtra had reported over 63,000 vases on Friday.
The five most affected States by total cases are Maharashtra (37,70,707), , Kerala (12, 21,168), Karnataka (11,41, 998), Tamil Nadu (9,80, 728), , and Andhra Pradesh (9, 55, 455).
West Bengal, which went to the fifth phase of poll on Saturday amid massive mass mobilisation by political parties in violation of all Covid-19 norms registered the highest single-day spike of 7,713 cases taking the tally to 6,51,508, the health department said in a bulletin. The death toll also rose to 10,540 after 34 fresh fatalities were reported.
Uttar Pradesh on Saturday reported 120 deaths, its largest one-day toll from the pandemic pushing the fatality count to 9,703, while 27,357 fresh Covid-19 cases raised the infection tally to 8,21,054, according to an official statement.
Of the new fatalities linked to the virus, 36 were reported from the State capital Lucknow, followed by 15 from Kanpur, eight from Varanasi, four each from Moradabad, Muzaffarnagar, and Jaunpur among other districts. Lucknow accounted for 5,913 of the fresh Covid-19 cases, Allahabad 1,977, Kanpur 1,826, and Varanasi 1,664, the UP Government said in a statement issued here. The number of active Covid-19 cases stand at 1,70,059 in Uttar Pradesh, the statement added.
Meanwhile, chairing a review meeting virtually, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath said every hospital should have an oxygen backup of 36 hours.
