Wednesday, 28 April 2021 | PNS | New Delhi
India 3rd in global death tally after US and Brazil
India touched the grim milestone of 2 lakh Covid-19 deaths on Tuesday as the country also logged in another single-day high of new cases with several States making new daily peaks.
India reported a record 3,285 deaths and 3,62,757 new cases during the last 24 hours on Tuesday night with Maharashtra topping the tally on both counts. The State reported 66,358 new cases and record 895 deaths.
Maharashtra also led the death tally across the country with 66,179 fatalities, followed by Delhi (15,009) Karnataka (14,807), Tamil Nadu (13,728), Uttar Pradesh (11,678), and West Bengal (11,082).
In terms of a total number of cases Kerala occupies the second spot behind Maharashtra with 14,60,365 cases, but it is way below in the fatality tally. It’s obvious that the small State has done something out of the way to control the death rate.
India is placed third in the global death tally behind the USA (5.9 lakh deaths) and Brazil (3.92 lakh deaths).
A day after a noticeable reduction in the number of Covid-19 triggered deaths, Maharashtra was in for a shock on Tuesday, an all-time high of 895 people succumbed to the pandemic while 66,536 people tested positive in various parts of the State.
As the daily deaths rose from 532 on Monday to 895 on Tuesday and infections from 48,700 to 66,538, the total deaths in Maharashtra climbed from 65,284 to 66,179. Similarly, with 66,536 fresh infections, the total number of cases rose from 43,43,727 to 44,10,085.
As 67,752 patients were discharged from hospitals across the State after full recovery, the total number of people discharged from the hospitals since the second week of March last year went up to 36,69,548. The recovery rate in Maharashtra for the first time in several days rose from 82.92 per cent to 83.21 per cent.
Meanwhile, on a day the number of fresh Covid cases came down in Uttar Pradesh, the State recorded a high of 265 deaths with capital Lucknow alone logging 39 deaths, as per official record shared by the health department.
Lucknow registered 4,437 new cases while UP logged 32,993. But the good news is that 30,398 people have recovered from the infection.
Kanpur city reported 15 deaths, Prayagraj (13), Varanasi (13), Ghaziabad also recorded a high of 15 deaths in the last 24 hours. A dozen deaths have been reported from Noida — another high. Jhansi reported eight deaths, Moradabad and Agra 4 each, Ballia reported a high of six cases, Jaunpur 4, Shahjahanpur 4, and Sonebhadra 3.
Kerala has become the epicentre of Covid-19 pandemic according to medical experts in the State. Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan in his media interaction on Tuesday disclosed that the State has diagnosed 32,819 persons with Covid-19 during the last 24 hours and this is being seen as the highest-ever single-day cases in South India.
With the Department of Health confirmed that the State saw 32 fatalities during the last 24 hours, the death toll in Kerala reached 5,170. Test positivity rate stood at 23.24.
The State wore the look of a ghost city, according to Subramanian Sasidharan, an entrepreneur from Virudhunagar who has made Kerala his home for the last 40 years. “With ambulances blaring the siren ferrying Covid-19 patients to hospitals and from there to the burial grounds, the State reminds me of scenes directly culled from war movies of the 1960s. This is not the Kerala I grew up with,” Sasidharan told The Pioneer.
The surge in the number of Covid-19 cases comes a day after Chief Minister told the people that the medical fraternity has come across new variants of the pandemic, which he described as the British and South African variants. “These genetically modified varieties of Covid viruses are lethal than the ones which we are familiar with and in days to come we will see a tsunami of Covid in Kerala,” Vijayan had told Monday evening.
CHENNAI: Tamil Nadu Government in a late evening release said that 15,830 new persons were diagnosed with Covid-19 on Tuesday. The pandemic claimed 77 lives during the last 24 hours and this took the death toll in the State to 13,728 till date.
As on Tuesday evening the State had 1,0,8855 persons who were tested positive for the pandemic. There has been no respite in the number of persons being tested (RT-PCR) as 1,21, 549 persons were tested on Tuesday.
Chennai registered 4640 new patients while neighbouring Chengalpattu district came second with 1,181 cases. The Oxygen controversy has subsided for the time being with the Supreme Court showing green light for reviving the production of medical grade oxygen from the Thoothukudi unit of the Sterlite Industries. The plant has a capacity to produce 1000 tonne oxygen per day.
Twenty-five more patients succumbed to Covid-19 while 3164 fresh cases of Coronavirus were recorded, taking the tally of active positive cases to 22283 in the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir on Tuesday.
According to the media bulletin, “Out of 25 deaths, 15 were reported from Jammu and 10 from Kashmir division. Out of 3164 fresh cases, 1030 were reported from Jammu and 2134 from Kashmir division”.
Srinagar district recorded the highest tally of 1144 patients in one single day while Jammu district stood at number two with 489 fresh cases of coronavirus.
