On Wednesday, India reported 904 deaths, highest in a day. With this figure, the number of people who have died of the novel coronavirus in India has gone beyond 40,000 now. The number of deaths stood at 40,699, giving India a death rate of 2.07 per cent.?
Union health minister Harsh Vardhan asserted that the spread of coronavirus has been contained in the country, citing how half the total cases are from three states only and another 30 per cent from seven others.
His remarks come as the country is inching towards the grim mark of two million cases.?
Even with these startling numbers, India's COVID fatality rate is significantly lower than the global fatality rate which is currently at 3.8 per cent.
According to the global database of the World Health Organisation (WHO), close to 7 lakh people out of the 1.83 crore (18.3 million) who have been detected with the disease, have died.?
The United States has recorded the maximum number of deaths due to COVID-19. With more than 150,000 people dead so far, the death rate in the United States is slightly more than 3.3 per cent.
Harsh Vardhan also said that the country was "preparing for the pandemic as soon as China informed the World Health Organisation on January 7", over three weeks before the first case emerged.
India had reported its first coronavirus case on January 30 when a student from Kerala, who was studying in China's Wuhan University, came back to India and tested positive for the deadly virus.