India Overtakes Brazil As Country 2nd-Worst Hit By Covid-19

FILE PHOTO: A health worker and relatives wearing personal protective equipment carry the body of a man, who died due to the coronavirus disease, for his cremation, at a crematorium in New Delhi on August 17, 2020

India’s coronavirus infections surged past 4.2 million on Monday, as it overtook Brazil to become the country with the second-highest number of cases.

With 4,204,613 infections, India is nearly 70,000 cases ahead of Brazil, which will post its most recent numbers later on Monday.

India, with a daily record 90,802 cases on Monday, also has the fastest-growing case load. The United States, with more than 6 million cases, remains the worst-affected country.

Deaths in India have been relatively low so far, but it has posted more than 1,000 deaths for each of the last five days.

On Monday, India’s Health Ministry said 1,016 people died of COVID-19, taking total mortalities to 71,642.

Coronavirus cases in India have reached 4.1 million and about 3.2 million affected people have been treated so far, the government data showed.

Medical experts said the country was seeing a second wave of the pandemic in some parts of the country, and that case numbers have surged because of increased testing and the easing of restrictions on public movement.

The government will partially restore metro train services in the national capital of New Delhi from today.

The pandemic will not finish this year as the virus has spread from big cities to other parts of the country, Randeep Guleria, the director of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in New Delhi, said in an interview with India Today TV.

The number of cases could continue to rise before the curve flattens out, he said.

India has logged the world’s largest daily coronavirus case load for almost a month, even as the government pushes to open businesses to revive a contracting economy.