By: Aswathy Nair
INDIA’s Covid-19 cases rose to 440,215 on Tuesday (23) with 14,933 fresh cases reported in the last 24 hours. The death toll went up to 14,011 as the pandemic claimed 312 lives in a day.
According to the health ministry, there are 178,014 active cases in the country while 248,189 have recovered so far. About 11,000 patients recovered in past 24 hours.
Maharashtra, with 135,796 cases, remains the worst affected state, followed by Delhi and Tamil Nadu, both with over 60,000 cases.
The number of government labs for Covid-19 testing has been increased to 723 and private labs has been increased to 262. As of June 22, over 7.1 million samples were tested for coronavirus.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has warned that the pandemic was accelerating as economies reopen. It has called for a rapid increase in production of the steroid dexamethasone, which has been shown to have life-saving potential for critically ill patients.
With 2.3 million cases and over 120,000 deaths, the US remains the worst affected country. India has the fourth highest number of coronavirus cases in the world after the US, Brazil and Russia.
Earlier this week, Delhi surpassed Tamil Nadu to become the second worst-hit by coronavirus in India. A high-level committee set up by the home minister Amit Shah had recommended quarantine of contacts of all the Covid-19 positive cases in Delhi and re-mapping of all containment zones to check the rapid spread of the coronavirus infection.
