The Covid pandemic in India reached a dubious milestone when daily cases crossed the 1-lakh mark for the first time as per TOI. This makes us only the second country after USA to record six figures in one day.?
India recorded 1,03,844 fresh cases. Maharashtra led the way with 57,074 fresh infections. The national tally for Sunday was over 5000 more than the previous peak of 98,795 cases on September 17, 2020, as per TOI¡¯s Covid database collated from state governments.
With this, the second wave of the pandemic in India, which started just around 52 days ago, has already seen a higher peak in cases than the first wave. The seven-day rolling average of daily cases has increased seven-fold, up from 11,364 on February 11 to 78,318 on April 4 ¡ª the sharpest rise since the start of the pandemic.?
Sunday also saw a record single-day increase in the country's pool of active cases, which rose by over 50,000. Active cases crossed 7 lakh, just three days after going past the 6-lakh mark.?
India recorded 5,48,625 fresh coronavirus cases in the current week (March 29-April 4), the highest since September 28-October 4 (when the count was 5.5 lakh). The current week's count was 1,55,569 higher than the number recorded in the previous seven days, which is the biggest jump in cases seen since the beginning of the pandemic.?
Deaths too registered the steepest ever week-on-week increase. There were 2,974 fatalities recorded during March 29-April 4, a record 1,099 more than the count in the previous week (1,875). This week's Covid toll was the highest since November 30-December 6. While fatalities have risen sharply during the second wave, the numbers are still far less than the toll witnessed when daily cases were around the current levels in the first wave. While this could be due to a lag often seen between the rise in cases and deaths, fatalities need to be carefully monitored in the coming weeks.?
On Sunday, India recorded 477 deaths from the virus. The daily toll has been over 400 in the past five days, touching a high of 514 on Saturday.?
While Maharashtra breached the 50,000 mark in daily cases for the first time on Sunday, Mumbai's tally was also at an all-time high of 11,206. Maharashtra total case count went past the 3 million mark, nearly three-times higher than the next worst-hit state, Kerala, which has recorded over 1.1 million cases so far.?
Besides Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh (3,178 cases) and Gujarat (2,875) also posted their highest daily cases till date on Sunday. Twelve other states, led by Uttar Pradesh (4,164 cases) and Delhi (4,033), registered their highest single-day surge in infections this year.?