India's COVID-19 death toll surges past 50K, total cases cross 26 lakh-mark

New Delhi: India's novel coronavirus tally crossed the 26 lakh-mark on Monday with 57,981 new cases in 24 hours, while the death toll climbed to 50,921 with 941 more fatalities, said the Health Ministry.

Out of the total 2,647,663 cases, recoveries have surged to 1,751,555 with a record 57,584 more people recuperating in the past 24 hours, taking the recovery rate to nearly 72.51 per cent. The actual caseload of the country is the active cases, which currently stand at 6,76,900.

The country had touched the two-million mark on August 7 and added more than six lakh cases in ten days. The silver lining, however, is that the gap between recoveries and active cases is growing every day. Currently, recoveries are over 12 lakh more than the active cases.

As far as the death toll is concerned, the country had registered its first death on March 13 and crossed the 25,000-mark on July 17. The next 25,000 deaths were logged in the span of a month.

Notably, the case fatality rate, which is the proportion of people who die from the disease among individuals diagnosed, has dropped to 1.93 per cent, the ministry said.

As many as 7,31,697 samples were tested on Sunday, taking the total to 3,00,41,400 samples being tested till date, according to the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR).

Maharashtra remained the worst-hit state with a total of 5,95,865 cases and 20,037 deaths; followed by Tamil Nadu with 3,38,055 cases and 5,766 deaths. The southern state is followed by Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Delhi, and Uttar Pradesh.

At the global front, the overall number of global coronavirus cases has topped 21.5 million, while the deaths were nearing 774,000, according to Johns Hopkins University.

As of Monday morning, the total number of cases stood at 21,598,893 and the fatalities rose to 773,934, the University's Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) revealed in its latest update.

The US accounted for the world's highest number of infections and fatalities at 5,403,213 and 170,052, respectively, according to the CSSE. Brazil came in the second place with 3,340,197 infections and 107,852 deaths.

Has India become the global hub of Covid-19?

In what can be a matter of concern, India has left the US and Brazil behind, as far as its seven-day average of daily new coronavirus cases are concerned. Since the pandemic broke out, this has happened for the first time. What does it mean? In simpler words, it suggests that for a straight week, India has consistently reported more new cases every day than the other two front-running nations.

If numbers are any evidence, then Johns Hopkins University's Coronavirus Resource Center indicates that on August 11, India had a weekly average of over 60,000 new cases each day. That was way over what the other two - US and Brazil - recorded.

What's more, that even as the US graph is coming down and Brazil has found a plateau, India seems to be on a gravity-defying spree. If numbers are anything to go by as far as indications of what is in store for the immediate future, India is in for a rough ride.

India's doubling rate every 24 days is a stark contrast against every 47 days in Brazil and an even envious 65 days in the US, where the graph has already started to come down. The longer the doubling rate period grows, the better as it is a sign of having a grip over the pandemic. While the US has been successful in increasing the doubling period quite fast which is reflected in its overall Covid-19 performance, as of now, India is visibly struggling to do so.

If that was not bad news enough, India is all set to cross what was once the coronavirus peak of the US and cited by many in India to make a point how India was faring better than the US. That peak of the US came on July 22 when it hit a weekly average of over 67,000 new cases. India is all set to cross that record.

Meanwhile, India's mortality rate has been better than the two. But the trend by Johns Hopkins University shows Brazil's daily death rate has stabilised, while the US's daily death rate is slowly coming down. Meanwhile, as far as India goes, it is simply going up. However, India is still behind the US and Brazil as far as the accumulated death counts are concerned.

According to the Health Ministry's website, at the tim this report was filed, India's Covid fatalities stood 49,980, just 20 short of 50,000. So far only the US, Brazil and Mexico have crossed 50,000 mark.

With the world's highest seven-day average of daily new cases and upwardly moving graph of fatality figures, India is increasingly appearing to be the global hub of coronavirus.