COVID-19: India reports over 40,000 cases in single day, recoveries cross 7 lakh mark

The Coronavirus cases in India have been rising at a steady rate. The states reported over 40,000 fresh cases in the last 24 hours. The nation’s tally now stands at 11,18,043 with the addition of 40,425 cases reported on Sunday. With 681 fatalities reported in the last 24 hours, the death toll has risen to 27,497.

On Sunday, the Union Health Ministry said despite the increasing cases in India, the fatality rate has been progressively falling. It is currently at 2.49% – one of the lowest across the world.

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In the last 24 hours, 22,664 patients were declared cured, taking the recoveries tally to 7,00,086. India currently has 3,90,459 active cases. The gap between the number of active cases and recoveries is 3,09,627.

According to the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), 1.40 crore samples have been tested for Coronavirus so far in India. In the last 24 hours, 2.5 lakh samples were tested.

The government said, “The Rapid Antigen Point of Care (POC) Test coupled with the facilitation of widespread gold-standard RT-PCR based testing by States/UTs has resulted in a surge in the number of samples tested.”

Last week, Bharat Biotech started human clinical trials of its COVID vaccine Covaxin. Zydus Cadila, another Pharma major also started its human clinical trials of its vaccine candidate.

Vaccine Major, Serum Institute of India is currently working on the AstraZeneca Oxford vaccine. It is planning on starting its human clinical trials in August 2020.