NEW DELHI: For the last five days, India has been reporting more novel Coronavirus infections than any other country in the world. On Saturday, India’s over 64,000 new infections comprised more than 22 per cent of all the cases detected globally.

The United States and Brazil, two countries that have greater number of people infected by the virus till now, have been finding fewer number of new cases every day during this period, while India’s case numbers have been increasing steadily, with more than 60,000 new cases for the last three days. The numbers in the United States and Brazil have not gone past lower 50,000s in the last three days.

The outbreak had begun in Brazil and India around the same time, in early March, though the first three cases in India had been detected at the end of January itself. The United States had started to get the first infections around the second week of January.

But the early and complete national lockdown in India slowed down the spread of the disease, while the United States and Brazil saw a rapid increase in the infections during this time, which has continued more or less, till now. In the United States, more than 48.36 lakh people have so far been infected, while in Brazil the disease has affected 29.12 lakh by now.

The number in India reached 21.53 lakh on Saturday, and at this rate, India is poised to overtake Brazil within a month’s time. In the last three days, Brazil has been adding more than 50,000 new cases daily, but this number fluctuates widely in that country, sometimes dropping to as low as 15,000 before jumping again.

The gap between India and Brazil amongst active cases is much narrower. India has about 6.28 lakh active patients, while Brazil has 8.18 lakh. In the United States, the number of active cases is 23.46 lakh.

The ten worst-affected states accounted for about 82 per cent of all the cases in the country, both in terms of total caseload, as well as new cases on Saturday.

Maharashtra reported more than 12,000 new cases for the first time on Saturday, and its total number of infections now exceed 5 lakh. Apart from the United States and Brazil, only Russia and South Africa have more than five lakh confirmed infections till now. But Maharashtra has already registered more deaths than either of these two countries. In Russia, less than 15,000 people have died so far, while in South Africa the number of dead is just above 10,000. However, many other countries, like the United Kingdom, Spain or Italy, with much lower caseloads have seen many more people dying due to the disease.