Covid patients in India exceeds 55 lakh, more than one lakh recovered in 24 hours

NEW DELHI: The number of novel coronavirus cases detected in India in the 24 hours ending 9 am Tuesday was 75,083. This took the country’s tally above 55 lakh. With an additional 1,053 deaths due to Covid-19, the toll rose to 88,935. The 55,62,664 cases in India includes 9,75,861 people who are undergoing treatment and 44,97,868 who have recovered.

India reported over 1.01 lakh recoveries on Monday, the highest single-day rise so far. In fact, for several days now, the number of people who have recovered from Covid-19 has been higher than the detection of new cases. The jump in recoveries and drop in new cases has ensured that the active cases in the country have dropped below the one million mark.

In other news, the phase-III human clinical trial of the Covid-19 vaccine being developed by Oxford University and manufactured by the Serum Institute of India (SII), began at the state-run Sassoon General Hospital in Pune on Monday. “We have started the phase-III trials of the vaccine (candidate Covishield). We will administer dose to 150 to 200 volunteers,” news agency PTI quoted Dr Muralidhar Tambe, Dean, Sassoon General Hospital, as saying.

Globally, over 30.4 million have been infected by the virus, of which, nearly 21 million have recovered and 958,400 people have died. While fatalities in the United States approached 200,000, China has found coronavirus particles on the packaging of frozen squid tentacles from Russia. Britain is at a “critical point” in the pandemic, and data on cases are heading in the “wrong direction,” Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty warned Monday. The country may impose a second lockdown due to this.