India once again recorded over 78,000 (78,512 to be exact) new cases of the coronavirus disease which pushed the nationwide tally to 3,621,245, according to Union health ministry data.
This is for the second day in a row that the number of Covid-19 cases has stayed above the 78,000-mark. On Sunday, India had made a world record after recording 78,761 cases of the infection.
The number of active cases in the country has reached 7,81,975 whereas 27,74,801 patients have been discharged from hospitals. The death toll reached 64,469 after 971 fatalities were recorded in the last 24 hours, according health ministry.
This comes a day before the fourth phase of relaxation, called Unlock 4, kicks in. The central government has announced resumption of metro train services and some other relaxation, which a few experts say will lead to surge in Covid-19 infections.
Dr Samiran Panda, the head of Epidemiology and Communicable Diseases at the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), said on Sunday that this increase in cases was expected but pointed out that it is not a homogenous phenomenon across the states.
“It is happening in some pockets and among groups where there is an intermixing of the susceptible population and asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic cases which is leading to a transmission of the disease. So, efforts have to be made to interrupt this transmission in these pockets,” Dr Panda said.
Also, testing has been ramped up exponentially which is leading to more number of cases getting detected, he said.
Leading virologist Shahid Jameel said that people are not following advisories on wearing masks, hand hygiene and social distancing which is driving up the number of cases.
India conducted more than 10.5 lakh tests on Saturday, which took the total number of tests to 4.14 crore, the health ministry said on Sunday.
The Centre, keeping in view the evolving global context of Covid-19, conceptualised and implemented the continuum of care strategy of “test, track and treat” in close coordination with the states and union territories, it said.
