Corona count goes from 4 lakh to 5 lakh in 6 days; 18,000-plus cases on Friday

NEW DELHI: India raced past the 5 lakh mark in Covid-19 cases on Friday, just six days after the caseload had crossed 4 lakh, even as the day’s fresh infections touched another new peak, surging past 18,000 for the first time.

There were 381 deaths from the virus on Friday, the first time in four days that the toll had dipped below 400. The country has so far recorded 5,09,377 cases and 15,681 deaths, while over 2.95 lakh patients have recovered, as per data from state governments.

The pandemic continued to surge, with 18,572 new cases being reported on Friday, surpassing the previous day’s record of 17,870. This was the seventh peak in daily cases in past eight days. Friday’s count was again led by Maharashtra, which reported over 5,000 cases for the first time.

Maharashtra reports 5,000 more Covid cases

Maharashtra on Friday added 5,024 new Covid cases, its highest single day addition so far. With this, the total number of Covid19 cases in the state stood at 1,52,765 cases, breaching the 1.5 lakh mark. Between Thursday and Friday, the state has added nearly 10,000 cases despite claims that the growth rate has slowed down.

On Friday, 175 deaths were reported in Mahasrashtra, of which 91 occurred in the last 48 hours and the remaining 84 were from a previous period. The total death toll in the state breached the 7000-mark and was 7,106. Mumbai reported 117 deaths taking the death toll to 4,179, which marginally increased the case fatality rate to 5.79% on Friday. It appears that data reconciliation of deaths is far from over in the state or Mumbai.

An analysis of the 5024 cases showed that merely 25% or 1,297 cases were from Mumbai while the remaining 75% were from outside Mumbai, indicating a rapid rise in other parts of Maharashtra.

Tamil Nadu’s Covid-19 infections spiked for the third day running on Friday. Chennai had 1,956 of the 3,645 fresh cases in Tamil Nadu, which now has 32,305 people still under treatment, while 41,357 have been cured. The official toll in the state rose to 957 with 46 more deaths.

Chennai, which accounted for 63.20% of the state’s new cases on June 16, had 53.66% of them on Friday. Over the 10 days, Chennai added 15,000 cases, an increase of 1.5 times.

Delhi recorded 3,460 fresh cases on Friday, taking the tally to over 77,000, while the death toll mounted to 2,492. On Tuesday, the national capital had reported the highest single-day spike of 3,947 cases. Sixty-three fatalities have been recorded in the last 24 hours, a Delhi health department bulletin said on Friday.