India exceeds 400,000 new Covid cases for first time
New Delhi, May 1 (EFE).- India exceeded 400,000 daily Covid-19 cases on Saturday for the first time, a new record in the country hard hit by the pandemic, while more than 3,500 patients died in the last 24 hours.
The country recorded 401,993 new infections just 10 days after it crossed 300,000 cases, bringing the total number of infections to 19.1 million, according to the Ministry of Health.
Deaths have also remained above 3,000 since Wednesday, and after a slight drop on Friday, the figure reached 3,523 on Saturday, with 211,853 recorded since the start of the pandemic, corresponding to 1.1 percent of all cases.
The infection curve has become accustomed to breaking record after record in recent weeks, with no peak of this second wave in sight and with hospitals saturated, frequent calls for help in search of oxygen and overflowing crematoriums.
Active cases are at 3.2 million, 17.06 percent of the total infections registered so far, while 15.6 million, 81.84 percent of those infected, have recovered.
One figure that shows the critical situation in India is its positivity rate, which is now 21 percent, when just a month ago it was under 6 percent. The World Health Organization considers the pandemic to be under control if the positivity rate is below 5 percent.
A problem that India faces in reducing this rate of positivity is the lack of testing, which in the midst of the pandemic sits at around 1.5 million a day, almost 2 million in the past day.
In New Delhi alone, where long lines can be seen at the doors of testing labs, more than 27,000 new infections and 375 deaths were recorded in the last 24 hours, while in the most-affected region of Maharashtra, almost 63,000 cases and 828 deaths were reported.
The country sees its vaccination campaign as the greatest help out of the crisis, especially with the new phase that begins Saturday, in which shots are extended to all those over 18 years of age, although some regions have announced that they will not be able to start due to the lack of vaccines.
The vaccination rate has been slow since the campaign began in January, with some 155 million doses administered so far, 2.7 million of those in the last 24 hours. EFE
mt/tw
