National COVID-19 tally reaches 2.17 lakh

The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Delhi has reached 2.17 lakh on Thursday after a record number of over 9,000 cases were detected while several states reported their highest one-day surge. Meanwhile, the Union Health Ministry released standard operating procedures for reopening offices, hotels, shopping malls, restaurants, and religious places. Some of them have already re-opened in parts of the country and few others are scheduled to re-start in the next phase of unlocking from next Monday.

 

In an update released Thursday morning, the Union Health Ministry said the total number of positive cases has mounted to 2,16,919 with a record spike of 9,304 new cases since Wednesday 8 AM across the country, while the death toll has increased to 6,075 with 260 more fatalities in this period.

 

India is now



the seventh worst-hit nation after the US, Brazil, Russia, the UK, Spain and Italy. In terms of fatalities, India is ranked 12th at present, while it is placed at eighth place in terms of recoveries. However, India figures among the top-five countries in terms of active cases, as also for the number of tests conducted so far.

 

The health ministry also said that the number of active COVID-19 cases now stands at 1,06,737, while the count of recoveries has risen to 1,04,107 with 3,804 patients recovering in the last 24 hours. "The recovery rate is 47.99 per cent amongst COVID-19 patients," the ministry said.

 

According to the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), a total of 42,42,718 samples were tested for coronavirus infection as of Thursday 9 AM, including 1,39,485 of those tested in the last 24 hours.