India surpasses Brazil, now has second-highest number of COVID-19 cases

Guwahati: India overtook Brazil on Monday to now become the country with the second-largest number of people infected with the novel coronavirus. The country's caseload now stands at 41.13 lakh. In comparison, Brazil, according to the latest figures from the World Health Organisation, has so far reported 40.41 lakh infections.

Meanwhile, about 32.5 lakh Covid-19 patients in the country have recovered so far, and over 69,000 recoveries were recorded in the last 24 hours. Across the country, 71,642 deaths linked to the Covid-19 have been registered since the beginning of the pandemic, while 1,016 deaths have been recorded since yesterday.

The United States, where more than 60 lakh people have so far been infected, is the only country that is ahead of India now. The country has been reporting between 40,000 and 50,000 cases a day, which is far lesser than India's daily average.

On Saturday, India registered more than 90,000 new cases of the virus, which is an international record. No country has recorded more than 75,000 new cases in a single day since the outbreak began.

Brazil, on the other hand, is showing a declining trend in its coronavirus curve.  On some days in between, its daily discovery of cases has dropped to well below 20,000.

While India's testing capacity for the virus has increased steadily, the number of detections have gone up sharply since August, more so in the last two weeks.

At the start of August, around 4- 5 lakh samples were being tested every day across the country. Towards the end of the month, that number crossed the 10 lakh mark, and has stayed there ever since. Apart from the United States, no other country has conducted that many tests. At the same time, the positivity rate has been slowly but steadily declining in India since the second week of August.

Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, and Uttar Pradesh are the states that have been hit worst by the health crisis. These five states also reported the highest number of new cases in the last 24 hours.

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