India is now around 22L cases behind USA, which has a total of around 64 lakh cases
After a relentless month-long surge, India on Sunday pipped Brazil to the second spot in the list of nations worst-affected by Covid-19.
The reports that India occupied the second spot on Saturday was misleading because Brazil’s tally was updated well after midnight, hours after last of the Indian States reported their daily surge.
Exactly one month ago — on August 6 — India had 20.25 lakh cases and Brazil 29.17 lakh cases. In thirty days, India overcame this 9 lakh difference by recording an average of nearly 30,000 cases more on a daily basis to end on Sunday with a caseload of over 42 lakh.
India is now around 22 lakh cases behind the USA, which had a total of around 6.4 million cases. The USA is recording around 45,000 cases daily, which around 35,000 to 45,000 less than India. With this sort of acceleration, India should be able to now occupy the top spot in the world in the next two months, if not earlier.
India added the maximum number of cases in the world during the last one month. While the country added nearly 22 lakh cases between August 6 and September 6, during the same period the USA added around 15 lakh cases and the Brazil recoded a total of 13 lakh cases.
India is now adding nearly 33 per cent of total daily cases, which means out of every three cases recorded in the world one is from India. On Saturday, the world recorded around 27 lakh new cases with India’s bringing in the lion’s share of 90,000 plus cases.
However, India can have the satisfaction of recording relatively fewer fatalities in comparison to Brazil and the USA. While the USA has lost around 193 lakh lives to Covid-19, Brazil’s fatalities stand at 127 lakh. With around 71,000 death India’s mortality due to Covid-19 stand less than 2 per cent of the total recorded cases.
But India has serious reasons to be worried about the developing situation. While the virus outbreak seemed to have platued out both in Brazil and the USA, there is no sign that India is going to peak out any sooner.
With several States, especially Delhi showing signs of a second wave, and Maharashtra registering new single day spike on a daily basis, India could soon start recording more than one lakh cases in every 24 hours. That could be a scary situation at a time when metro trains, bars and restaurants are going to be opened across the country.
Monday, 07 September 2020 | PNS | New Delhi
