India’s number of reported fatalities from the coronavirus has crossed 50,000 after 941 new deaths were reported in the past 24 hours.
With a total of 50,921 reported deaths, India now has the fourth most reported fatalities from the virus in the world, behind the United States, Brazil, and Mexico.
India’s number of confirmed coronavirus cases also crossed 2.6 million on Monday after a spike of 57,982 cases in the past 24 hours, according to the Health Ministry. India is behind the United States and Brazil in total reported cases.
The daily increase in newly reported infections was around 15,000 in the first week of July but jumped to more than 50,000 in the first week of August. The ministry cited its testing efforts, with more than 800,000 tests in a single day. The Indian Council of Medical Research, India’s top medical research body, said that more than 731,697 samples were tested for the virus on Sunday. India has conducted nearly 30 million tests so far.
Health experts say it needs to be higher, given India’s population of 1.4 billion.
August has seen a big spike in fatalities with more than a quarter of the country’s total coronavirus deaths coming in the past 17 days.
India’s fatality rate is less than 2 percent, according to the Health Ministry.
More than 70 percent of people infected in India have recovered.
India’s two-month lockdown imposed nationwide in late March kept infections low. But it has eased and is now largely being enforced in high-risk areas. The new cases spiked after India reopened shops and manufacturing and allowed hundreds of thousands of migrant workers to return to their homes from coronavirus-hit regions.
Subways, schools and movie theaters remain closed.
By The Associated Press in New Delhi.