NEW DELHI: India reported its sharpest single-day rise in deaths from the Covid-19 pandemic when 396 fatalities were recorded across the country on Monday, even as the number of fresh infections fell to a six-day low of a little over 10,000 cases.
An addition of 10,373 cases saw India’s Covid-19 caseload rise to nearly 3.43 lakh while the death toll stood at 9,914. With this, the first 15 days of June have seen more cases and fatalities than the whole of May, when over 1.5 lakh infections and 4,267 deaths were reported in the country.
Monday was the sixth day in a row of more than 300 deaths being reported and the highest so far. The previous highest single-day toll was 393 on June 11. The surge in deaths was mainly on account of Maharashtra reporting its highest one-day toll of 178, along with a surge in fatalities in Delhi (73) and Tamil Nadu (44). Gujarat continued to report a high number of deaths at 28.
While the deaths spiked, all three worst-hit Covid states of Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Delhi reported a drop in fresh cases, which was reflected in the day’s total falling nearly 1,800 lower than Sunday’s count of 12,195. The daily tally dropped below the 11,000 mark for the first time in five days.
While Maharashtra reported 2,786 new cases of the viral infection, Tamil Nadu’s count was 1,843 and Delhi’s 1,647 — all three substantially lower than the previous day’s respective figures.
However, at least two states — Haryana (514 new cases) and Andhra Pradesh (304) — reported their highest single-day count of cases. Besides, the caseload remained high in Gujarat (514), Uttar Pradesh (480), Bengal (407), Karnataka (213), J&K (182), Odisha (146) Punjab (127) and Assam (109).
The Covid-19 death toll in Tamil Nadu rose to a new single-day high of 44 on Monday, while the number of fresh cases dipped to 1,843 from 1,974 on Sunday. Health Minister C Vijayabaskar said the focus was not on number of cases anymore. “We want to minimise deaths and protect the vulnerable,” he said.
The mortality rate in TN went beyond 1% although the total in the Monday bulletin of 479 deceased so far did not include nearly 250 Covid deaths in Chennai, which the directorate of public health is yet to include in its count. Chennai continued to record the most fresh cases, 1,257 on Monday.
The Covid-19 tally for Uttar Pradesh crossed the 14k-mark with 480 fresh cases in the past 24 hours. With 60 new cases on Monday, Gautam Budh Nagar not only crossed the 1,000-mark, but also became the district with the maximum viral load.
GB Nagar’s tally is now 1,057 surpassing Agra, which had 16 cases on Monday to take its total to 1,054. On a positive side, the state’s recovery rate touched a new high of 61%.
Andhra Pradesh on Monday recorded yet another highest single-day jump in Covid-19 cases with 304 new infections and two more deaths. In a piece of rare good news, a two-month-old baby in Kurnool recovered from the pandemic virus, becoming the youngest person to recover from Covid-19 in AP.
As many as 79 personnel from various battalions of the CRPF were among the 182 fresh Covid-19 cases in J&K.
In Odisha, the number of Covid-19 cases crossed the 4,000 mark on Monday with 146 more testing positive for the virus. An equal number of positive people recovered taking the count of cured people to 2,854, the health authorities said.
From the day Odisha reported its first positive case on March 15, it took 57 days to reach 500. However, in just two days, it added the last 500 positive cases.
Meanwhile, Manipur has asked the Centre to stop all flights to Imphal from Thursday as the total number of Covid-19 cases in the state climbed to 490, with 32 more testing positive on Monday.
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