India’s Covid deaths inch closer to 80k as country reports around 1k new daily deaths

Mangalore Today News Network

New Delhi, Sep 14, 2020: India, on average, has been reporting at least 1,000 new deaths daily due to coronavirus disease (Covid-19) for the past three weeks now.

 

With 1,138 new Covid-19 deaths reported from across the country on Sunday, the total number of patients having succumbed to the viral infection in the country has reached about 80,000 (79,752) in the past six months.

The first death due to Covid-19 in India was reported on March 12, from south India. Maharashtra continues to report maximum number of Covid-19 related deaths in the country, with 416 patients dying on Sunday alone, taking the total number of deaths in the state to 29,531.

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Another worst affected state in terms of total number of deaths is Tamil Nadu with 8,381 cumulative deaths so far, and 74 new deaths reported in a single day. Karnataka reported second highest (104) new deaths, taking the Covid-19 death toll in the state to 7,265.

India’s case fatality rate (CFR), the proportion of people who have died of the disease among all individuals diagnosed with it, has been improving steadily and currently stands at 1.64%, which is among the lowest in the world.

The global CFR currently is nearly the double of Indian CFR at 3.18%. “Our aim is to bring country’s CFR further down to 1% or below. Most deaths and cases are concentrated in about 10 states, which have our special focus as far as containment measures is concerned,” said a senior health ministry official, requesting not to be identified.

The Centre has directed states to focus on those districts that are reporting high case fatality rate, and the urgent need for them to refine as well as strengthen approach and strategies relating to testing, contact tracing, surveillance, containment, home isolation, availability of ambulances, hospital beds, oxygen, treatment protocols, etc.

“There are some states that have certain districts that are not performing well, there is a need to look into specific problems of those districts to be able to better contain the disease spread,” the health ministry official added.

While measures are being taken by both the Centre and state governments to cut the disease transmission, the total number of new cases being reported each day is inching closer to 100,000.

On Sunday, 93,214 new cases were reported from across the country, taking the total number of Covid-19 positive cases in the country to close to 5 million (4,844,977).

Maharashtra also has the maximum of Covid-19 positive cases in the country as 22,543 people were on Sunday reported positive from the state, taking its total count to 1,060,308.

Andhra Pradesh is a close second with 567,123 cases reported in a single day, followed by Karnataka with 459,445 cases.


courtesy: Hindustan Times