New Delhi: Ten days after recording two lakh COVID-19 cases, India surpassed the three lakhmark on Saturday with the worst daily spike of 11,458 infections, while the death toll climbed to 8,884 with 386 new fatalities, the Union Health Ministry said. India took 64 days to cross the 1 lakh-mark from 100 cases, then in another fortnight it reached the grim milestone of two lakh cases. It has now become the fourth worst-hit nation by the pandemic with a caseload of 3,08,993, according to coronavirus statistics website Worldometer.
However, the Health Ministry on Friday said doubling time of cases has improved to 17.4 days from 15.4 days and its data updated at 8 am on Saturday showed active cases at 1,45,779 and those who have recovered at 1,54,329; one patient has migrated. "Thus, around 49.9 per cent patients have recovered so far," a ministry official said. The total number of confirmed cases include foreigners. Of the 386 new deaths, Delhi accounted for the highest 129 fatalities followed by Maharashtra 127. The virus is moving rapidly in Delhi, which for the first time reported over 2,000 cases on Friday, and Maharashtra, where the number of cases has crossed one lakh.
Gujarat reported 30 deaths, Uttar Pradesh 20, Tamil Nadu 18, West Bengal, Telangana and Madhya Pradesh 9 each, Karnataka and Rajasthan 7 each, Haryana and Uttarakhand 6 each, Punjab 4, Assam 2, Kerala, Jammu and Kashmir and Odisha 1 each. Of the total 8,884 deaths, Maharashtra tops the tally with 3,717 fatalities followed by Gujarat with 1,415, Delhi with 1,214, West Bengal with 451, Madhya Pradesh with 440,Tamil Nadu with 367, Uttar Pradesh with 365, Rajasthan with 272 and Telangana with 174 deaths. xxThe death toll reached 80 in Andhra Pradesh, 79 in Karnataka, 70 in Haryana and 63 in Punjab.
Jammu and Kashmir hasreported 53 COVID-19 fatalities, Bihar 36 and Uttarakhand 21, Kerala 19, Odisha 10 and Jharkhand and Assam 8 each. Chhattisgarh and Himachal Pradesh have registered 6 deaths each, Chandigarh 5, Puducherry 2, while Meghalaya, Tripura and Ladakh 1 each, according to the health ministry.
