India on Wednesday recorded 78,357 new cases of the coronavirus disease which pushed the nationwide tally to 3,769,524, according to Union health ministry dashboard.
The number of active cases reached 8,01,282, and those discharged from hospitals stood at 29,01,908 – a gap of 21,00,626.
The death toll reached 66,333 after 1,045 people died due to the disease in the last 24 hours.
Five states – Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh – have accounted for over half of the total Covid-19 cases and close to 60 per cent of the recoveries, the minittry said on Tuesday.
These five states have also reported the maximum number of patients that were cured and discharged, cumulatively accounting for 58.04 per cent of the total 65,081 people who have recovered till Tuesday.
While the recovery rate has risen close to 77 per cent, the case fatality rate has further dropped to 1.77 per cent, the health ministry said. The number of recoveries is 3.61 times the active cases of the viral infection.
According to the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), a cumulative 4,33,24,834 samples have been tested up to August 31, with 10,16,920 of them being tested on Monday.
Three states – Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra – account for nearly 34 per cent of the total tests, according to the government.
India’s daily testing capacity has crossed 10 lakh and the tests per million too have seen a sharp increase, reaching 31,394, the health ministry highlighted. Twenty-two states and union territories have tests per million better than the national average, it said.
The guiding principle within the Centre-led strategy of ‘test, track and treat’ has been aggressive testing by the states and union territories. Sustained high levels of testing lead to early diagnosis and enhanced recoveries, the health ministry said, adding that 1,22,66,514 tests were done just in the last two weeks.
