India COVID-19 News: COVID-19 Cases In India doubles To Two Million In A Span of Three weeks, Situation Expected To Get Far Worse
Source: India COVID-19 News Aug 07, 2020 4 years, 3 months, 2 weeks, 4 hours, 18 minutes ago
India COVID-19 News: India's official COVID-19 case tally hit two million on Friday, doubling in three weeks as the pandemic sweeps into smaller cities and rural areas, with experts warning the real toll could be much higher.
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Another record daily jump of more than 62,482 fresh infections was recorded, according to health ministry data, making the South Asian giant only the third country to surpass the two million milestone after the United States and Brazil.
Unfortunately the rate of spread in the world's second-most populous country also appears to be increasing. India logged its first one million infections by July 17 and crossed the 1.5 million mark just 12 days after that.
Reported figures show the country has now recorded 2.038 million infections and 41,589 deaths.
The worse affected states are Maharastra (479779), Tamil Nadu (279,144) and Andra Pradesh (196,789). Cities wise Mumbai, Chennai, Bengaluru and Delhi are all badly affected. However many medical experts and epidemiologists are saying that the actual figures in India could as much as eight fold.
It also said by Indian medical experts that in reality, India has already passed US in terms of infected cases and even deaths, it is just a concerted effort by state politicians and officials to keep figures low. There is an acute shortage of test kits and also hospital beds and adequate and affordable healthcare facilities for the masses.
India imposed one of the world's strictest lockdowns in late March. But with Asia's third-largest economy reeling from the impact, tens of millions of migrant workers lost their jobs almost overnight the restrictions have been steadily eased.
However individual states and cities have been imposing localized lockdowns including IT hub Bangalore last month, the eastern state of Bihar and parts of Tamil Nadu in the south.
The main hotspots previously have been the teeming megacities of New Delhi and Mumbai, home to some of the world's biggest slums.
However now smaller cities and rural areas where 70 percent of Indians live have begun to see case numbers rising sharply.
Death rates may also be higher than the official figures. Experts say that even in normal times the cause of death is not properly recorded in large numbers of cases.
A preliminary study last week that tested people for coronavirus antibodies found 57 percent in Mumbai's slums have had the infection far more than official data suggests.
Another probe earlier in July indicated that almost a quarter of people in the capital, New Delhi, have had the virus almost 40 times the official total.
It has been observed that in smaller cities and rural areas many people have been ignoring guidelines on social distancing and wearing masks.
The issue of Monsoon floods in recent weeks that have affected millions have also hindered efforts to fight the pandemic.
Furthermore, some of those infected are ostracized by their communities, leading to a stigmatization of the virus that puts people off being tested.
It is estimated th
at by the end of 2020, India could see the total number of infections rise to about 42 million cases with at least about 380,000 deaths.
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