India's Covid-19 tally crosses 66 lakh-mark with a spike of 74,442 new cases in 24 hrs; Britain passes 5 lakh cases

NEW DELHI: India has exceeded 140 tests per day per million population as advised by the World Health Organisation by nearly 6 times. Several states and UTs have demonstrated better performance than the national average, the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare has said. The figures come amid criticism of the government over low testing even though the Centre has claimed that India's daily testing numbers are one of the highest in the world. Higher testing numbers subsequently result in lowered positivity rate, it said. The surge in testing has been made possible by an equally speedy expansion in the testing lab network across the country. India has as on date 1,623 labs in the country with 1,022 labs in the government sector and 601 private labs, the ministry said.

As the coronavirus continues its curse around the world, the United Kingdom passed 5,00,000 confirmed coronavirus infections in the latest grim milestone for the European country worst-hit by the pandemic. Health authorities blamed a technical glitch for a sudden spike in cases announced in evening figures that had kept several thousand cases from the last week of September off the official tally. Sunday's numbers showed 22,961 cases for the day, a rise of more than 10,000 on Saturday's figures. Officials said the issue had now been resolved and earlier cases missed in the official count would be included in future figures. The United Kingdom has now recorded 502,978 Covid-19 cases since the start of the pandemic, with more than 42,000 deaths.