Across 5.5 million, India’s active cases dip, recoveries shoot up

A health worker in personal protective equipment (PPE) collects a sample using a swab from a person at a local health centre to conduct tests for the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), amid the spread of the disease, in the old quarters of Delhi, India, 14 August 2020Reuters

In a major relief India showed a spike of 75,083 fresh coronavirus cases in a day, nearly 20,000 less than its daily surge reported last week. Even though it crossed the 5.5 million-mark of total cases, it continued to show highest recovery rate, Health Ministry data showed on Tuesday.

There were now 975,861 active cases, while 4,497,867 have recovered, with 101,468 in the past 24 hours while 1,053 died taking the toll to 88,935.

With a tally of 55,62,663 cases, India’s recovery rate stands at 80.86 per cent, and the fatality rate is 1.60 per cent, according to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare data.

Even though India rallies behind the US for the total number of coronavirus cases, it has overtaken the country to become number one in terms of global recoveries.

Maharashtra continues to be the worst-hit with a total of 1,224,380 cases including 33,015 deaths; followed by Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Uttar Pradesh.

According to the data from the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), India conducted 9,33,185 sample tests in a single day on Monday, taking the total number of samples tested so far to 6,53,25,779.