New Delhi: India crossed the dreaded mark of 1,000 Covid-19 deaths in 24 hours, registering 1,007 between Sunday and Monday. The total number of deaths due to the pandemic now stands at 44,386.
The country did register two higher daily death figures — 2,003 on 16 June and 1,129 on 22 July — but in both cases, the spurt was caused by some states updating pending figures.
For India, the average time lapse between a case being detected and death seems to be 15 days, which is on a par with the international experience. A comparison of daily new cases and the daily deaths a fortnight later shows almost a perfect correlation with the cumulative case fatality rate (CFR) at the latter date.
Continuing this trend, the number of casualties reported Monday morning (1,007) is exactly 2 per cent of the number of fresh cases reported on 26 July (49,931), mirroring the overall CFR, which is also at 2 per cent.
Low deaths per million
With over 44,000 deaths, India is ranked third in the world in terms of total deaths, but still has a low figure in terms of deaths per million population — 32 — according to data from Worldometer.
The countries with the highest number of total deaths, USA (1,65,617) and Brazil (1,01,136), have registered 500 and 475 deaths per million population respectively.
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India’s death rate, which is 91st out of nearly 190 territories, is comparable with that of other south and east Asian countries, such as Pakistan (28), Bangladesh, Philippines, Indonesia (all 21) and Afghanistan (34).
High positivity and recoveries
India’s positivity rate too hit 13 per cent Monday morning, after a weekend dip brought testing numbers down to 4,77,023 from 7,19,364 a day earlier. In the last 24 hours, 62,064 fresh cases were reported.
However, just like the last two months, the Ministry of Health’s daily bulletin glossed over both the daily high in deaths and the number of fresh cases.
“India’s Covid-19 recoveries have crossed the historic peak of 1.5 million today. Recovery of 15,35,743 patients has been made possible because of the policy of TESTING aggressively, TRACKING comprehensively & TREATING efficiently. Better ambulance services, focus on standard of care and use of non-invasive oxygen have given the desired results,” it stated.
“With the highest ever single day recoveries of 54,859 in the last 24 hours, the recovery rate amongst the Covid-19 patients has scaled another high of almost 70 per cent,” the bulletin added.
This means active cases now comprise 28.66 per cent of all cases.
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