by Pankaj Yadav
NEW DELHI, Sept. 5 (Xinhua) -- India's COVID-19 tally surpassed 4 million on Saturday, reaching 4,023,179, while the number of deaths due to the pandemic soared to 69,561, according to federal health ministry's data.
According to the data, as many as 86,432 new COVID-19 cases and 1,089 deaths were recorded during the past 24 hours from across the country.
A report published in The Times of India said the country's tally rose from 3 million to 4 million in just 13 days, adding that it has been the fastest 1-million rise so far across the globe.
India continued to be the third worst-affected country by the pandemic, after the United States and Brazil.
Still there are 846,395 active cases in the country, while 3,107,223 people have been cured and discharged from hospitals.
Over the past several weeks, the country's focus has been on ramping up samples testing, which has partly led to the sudden jump in new daily cases.
As per the data from the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), 47,738,491 samples had been tested till Friday, with 1,059,346 samples tested on Friday alone.
The country's federal health ministry said Friday that despite the very high testing levels, daily positivity rate is below 7.5 percent and the cumulative positivity rate is less than 8.5 percent.
Meanwhile, India's Case Fatality Rate (CFR) has touched 1.74 percent following a steady decline.
The health ministry also said there were less than 0.5 percent of patients on ventilators, 2 percent in intensive care units (ICUs) and less than 3.5 percent on oxygen support.
Most of the new cases were recorded in south and southwestern states. Five states, namely Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh accounted for nearly 65 percent of the cases, according to an official at the federal health ministry.
Delhi, which showed a marked improvement in reducing COVID-19 cases over the past few weeks, has once again witnessed a rise in fresh cases. Active cases in Delhi rose to 17,692 as per the latest data, out of which 1,190 were recorded in the past 24 hours. As many as 19 deaths were recorded since Friday, while the total death toll in the Indian capital rose to 4,500.
The maximum number of 25,586 deaths have been registered in southwestern state of Maharashtra, followed by southern state Tamil Nadu with 7,608 deaths, Karnataka with 6,054 deaths, Delhi with 4,500 deaths and southern state Andhra Pradesh with 4,200 deaths.
India is currently in the Unlock-4 phase after the pandemic hit the country over seven months ago. Schools and all educational institutions remain shut, though efforts are ongoing to resume the services of Metro Rail with effect from Sept. 7 in a graded manner.
Restaurants and bars would also be opened from Sept. 9 after over five months of closure. Enditem
