At 20.5k, India sees slight rise in fresh cases; 287 deaths

A day after dropping to a low of nearly six months, India’s daily Covid-19 count rose to over 20,500 on Tuesday, along with a marginal increase in the death toll. The country recorded 20,517 fresh cases, the highest in four days, as several states detected a higher number of positive cases on increased testing. Kerala’s count jumped from 3,047 on Monday to 5,887. With this, India’s total caseload rose to 1,02,45,387.

The case count drops sharply every Monday due to lower testing and staff shortages over the weekend. More than 9.8 lakh tests were done across the country on Monday, an increase of nearly 2.7 lakh from the previous day, as per the covid19india.org tracker.

As many as 287 deaths were recorded on Tuesday. This was the highest daily toll in five days although the increase wasn’t substantially more than the previous day’s count of 251. The last time India recorded a toll of more than 300 was six days ago, when 337 Covid fatalities entered in the records. The total toll from the pandemic in India stood at 1,48,422.

While Kerala continued to report the highest number of fresh cases, Maharashtra was at second spot with 3,018 new infections on Tuesday, followed by Bengal (1,244), Chhattisgarh (1,134) and Uttar Pradesh (1,044).

The daily death toll remained the highest in Maharashtra (68), followed by Bengal (30), Delhi (28), Kerala (24) and Uttar Pradesh (18).

Fresh Covid cases in Tamil Nadu dropped below 1,000 for the first time in 212 days on Tuesday while 12 deaths were recorded. The daily count of fresh cases touched four digits for the first time on June 1.

In Rajasthan, Covid infections have been continuously dipping, with 626 fresh ones recorded on Tuesday. Except for Jaipur, where 108 cases were reported, the number was below 100 at a majority of districts.

Full report on www.toi.in