India’s Covid-19 cases near 7 million, recovery rate reaches 85 percent

New Delhi, Oct 7 (efe-epa).- The number of Covid-19 cases in India reached 6.7 million on Wednesday, with a recovery rate crossing 85 percent from the disease, according to the health ministry data.

Of the 6.76 million people infected with the virus in the second worst-affected country by the coronavirus pandemic, 5.74 million have already overcome the infection, the federal health ministry said.

During the last 24 hours from Tuesday, the country recorded a total of 72,049 new infections and 986 deaths, raising the number of fatalities due to the virus to 104,555.

The authorities said the spike in the rate of the number of people recuperating from the virus was due to “the continuous streak of the high number of recoveries reported in recent weeks.”

“India has passed an important milestone today,” the ministry said in a statement, adding that “sustained high levels of recoveries have led to a further widening of the gap between active and recovered cases.”

The government also announced that it would launch a campaign from Thursday for awareness about the preventive measures to check the spread of coronavirus.

Union Information and Broadcasting Minister Prakash Javadekar told reporters that the government decided for the new awareness campaign in a cabinet meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

He said till the time a vaccine was available, people needed to wear masks, maintain social distancing and sanitize hands as part of the efforts to check the virus outbreak.

He said posters and banners would be installed at public places and on public transports to spread the message so that people take precautions, more importantly, because the winter season was round the corner.

The authorities also insist that mortality per million inhabitants in the country of 1.3 billion was one of the lowest in the world.

The low fatality rate is partly due to the large youth population of India, since the country has around 5 percent of people above 65 years, according to the last census of 2011.

Despite the high number of cases, the fifth phase of the de-escalation will take effect in India from Oct. 15.

The government imposed a strict nationwide lockdown in March but has slowly eased restrictions amid an unprecedented economic slowdown.

The government has allowed regional authorities to reopen schools and other educational institutions in a phased manner from Oct. 15.

“Students may attend schools/institutions only with the written consent of parents,” the federal government said in a statement earlier.

Movie theaters will also reopen with a capacity restricted to 50 percent.

India is the second-worst affected country after the United States in terms of the total number of Covid-19 cases. EFE-EPA

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