India reported 1336 new cases of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) and 47 related deaths in the last 24 hours, the Union health ministry said on Tuesday morning, to breach the 18,500-mark.
With 14,759 active cases, 3252 people who have been cured, discharged or have migrated and 590 deaths, India’s coronavirus tally stood at 18,601, according to the health ministry’s dashboard.
The country crossed the 18,000 mark in just a day after 17,265 cases were reported on Monday morning. India had also seen the highest single-day spike on Monday with 1553 fresh cases till the evening.
The breach comes a day after the government said that the rate of doubling of Covid-19 cases in India has now improved to 7.5 days.
“India’s Covid-19 doubling rate has improved to 7.5 days from 3.4 days before the lockdown,” Lav Agarwal, joint secretary in the health ministry said at the daily briefing.
Eight states and a Union Territory—Delhi, Karnataka, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab, Chattisgarh, Tamil Nadu and Bihar—have shown a doubling rate in less than 20 days.
In Andaman and Nicobar Island, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Chandigarh, Assam, Uttarakhand and Ladakh the rate of doubling is between 20 and 30 days, Agarwal said.
In Odisha, the rate of doubling is 39.8 days and Kerala is best at 72.2 days.
Agarwal also said that 59 districts have not reported any new cases in the last 14 days.
“Mahe in Puducherry, Kodagu in Karnataka and Pauri Garhwal in Uttarakhand have not reported any Covid-19 case in the last 28 days. The number of districts where no case has been reported in the last 14 days has increased to 59. Goa is now Covid-free,” Agarwal said.
According to the Covid-19 dashboard by Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE), the number of confirmed cases stood at 2,476,916and there were 170,297 fatalities across the world at around 8am India time.