By HT Correspondent, Hindustan Times, New Delhi
PUBLISHED ON APR 21, 2021 08:26 AM IST
India reported 294,284 new cases on Tuesday, taking the total number of infections to 15.6 million.
For the first time, more than 2,000 people lost their lives to Covid-19 in a single day across India, even as daily infections neared 300,000 on Tuesday, as the country struggled against a second wave that has sparked shortages of hospital beds, oxygen, and medicines.
India reported 294,284 new cases on Tuesday, taking the total number of infections to 15.6 million. A total of 2,020 new deaths were reported due to Covid-19 on Tuesday, the highest ever, pushing the total number of people who have lost their lives to the disease to 182,591, according to HT’s dashboard.
India’s daily death count has exceeded 2,000 once before on July 16 last year, when there were 2,006 deaths lodged, but that number was inflated due to Delhi and Maharashtra adding around 1,500 deaths that had previously gone unreported.
Tuesday was the fifth day in a row that the single-day fatalities in the country have broken all previous records. The seven-day average of daily deaths now stands at 1,490, and has surpassed the peak seen during the first wave of the outbreak – on average, 1,169 people died for the week ending September 16.
The average positivity rate – the proportion of tests that return positive for Covid-19 – has now soared to 16% in the past week, the highest ever recorded in the country.
(Source: https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news)