India’s COVID-19 Tally Breaches 50 Lakh-Mark; Case Fatality Rate Drops To 1.63%

New Delhi: A single-day surge of 90,123 COVID-19 cases took India’s affected tally past 50 lakh mark to stand at 50,20,360 on Wednesday.

With this, India crossed a grim milestone to become the second country in the world after the US to record 5 million COVID-19 cases, with the last 1 million being reported in a record time of 11 days.

About 1,290 people have succumbed to infection in the last 24 hours, informed the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.

A total of 82,066 people have lost their lives due to COVID-19 so far with the country reporting more than 1,000 daily deaths for a fortnight in a row. India’s case fatality rate due to COVID-19, however, has dropped to 1.63 per cent.

About 78.53 per cent (39,42,361) people have recovered from the infection so far with 82,961 being discharged on Tuesday. Another 19.84 per cent (9,95,933) are still under treatment.

“RT-PCR and Rapid Antigen Test (RAT) capacities have been substantially scaled up in all states. On an average, more than 9.5 lakh samples are being tested in government labs and over 1.2L in private labs. At this rate, India is slated to overtake the USA in testing. While the number of daily tests has increased as an integral part of CHASE THE VIRUS strategy, states have been advised that all symptomatic negatives of Rapid Antigen Tests are mandatorily subjected to RT-PCR,” said the ministry.

According to the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), 5,94,29,115 samples have been tested for COVID-19, which includes Tuesday’s 11,16,842.