(TibetanReview.net, May23’20) – For the second successive day, India reported more than 6,000 new Covid-19 cases and a new record on May 23 morning as mass movement of workers and others stranded in hotspot cities to their homes, mostly in villages in other states, continued and much of the lockdown restrictions imposed since Mar 24 began to be lifted from May 18.
On the positive side, India’s Ministry of Health said May 22 that the Covid-19 fatality rate had dropped from 3.13 per cent to 3.02 per cent while the recovery rate had improved to 41 per cent, reported The Statesman May 23.
The report cited the Public Health Foundation of India as saying nearly 78,183 (96.72%) deaths had been averted due to the first two lockdowns.
The report also cited the Boston Consulting Group’s model as showing the lockdown had saved between 1.2 – 2.1 lakh lives, and the number of Covid-19 cases averted was between 36 – 70 lakh.
India’s focus is now on preventing the spread of the China-originated global pandemic from its containment zones.
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Following yet another highest ever daily increase in cases at 6,654, the total number of cases in India stood at 125,101 as of May 23 at 8AM, according to the tally of the country’s Ministry of Health. The number of deaths during the same 24-hour period was 137, taking the total to 3,720.
A total of 51,784 had recovered so that the number of active cases stood at 69,597.
India is currently the country with the 11th highest number of cases and 16th highest number of deaths from the globally raging pandemic.
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Maharashtra, the worst-hit state by a huge margin, had a cumulative total of 44,582 cases after 2,940 fresh cases were reported in the past 24 hours, followed by Tamil Nadu with 14,753 (+786) cases, Gujarat with 13,268 (+363) cases, and Delhi with 12,319 (+660) cases.
Other states with more than 1,000 cases were Rajasthan 6,494 (+267), Madhya Pradesh 6,170 (+189), Uttar Pradesh 5,735 (+220), West Bengal 3,332 (+135), Andhra Pradesh 2,709 (+62), Bihar 2,177 (+195), Punjab 2,029 (+1), Telangana 1,761 (+62), Karnataka 1,743 (+138), Jammu & Kashmir 1,489 (+40), Odisha 1,189 (+86), and Haryana 1,067 (+36).
Apart from the above states, others with more than 100 cases included Kerala 732 (+42), Jharkhand 308 (+18), Assam 259 (+56), Chandigarh 218 (+1), Tripura 175 (+2), Chattisgarh 172 (+44), Himachal Pradesh 168 (+16), and Uttarakhand 153 (+7).
States/Union Territories with less than 100 cases included Goa 54 (+2), Ladakh, 44 (+0), Andaman and Nicobar Islands, 33 (+0), Puducherry 26 (+6), Manipur 26 (+1), and Meghalaya 14 (+0), Mizoram (1), Nagaland (1), Arunachal Pradesh (1), and Dadar Nagar Haveli (1).
Maharashtra also had the most number of deaths at 1,517 (+63), followed by Gujarat 802 (+29), Madhya Pradesh 272 (+2), West Bengal 265 (+6), Delhi 208 (+14), Rajasthan 153 (+2), Uttar Pradesh 152 (+14), Tamil Nadu 98 (+4), Andhra Pradesh 55 (+2), Telangana 45 (+0), Karnataka 41 (+0), Punjab 39 (+0), Jammu & Kashmir 20 (+0), Haryana 16 (+1), Bihar 11 (+0), Odisha 7 (+0), Kerala 4 (+0), Assam 4 (+0), Jharkhand 3 (+0), Chandigarh 3 (+0), and Himachal Pradesh 3 (+0). Besides two states/ union territories, namely Meghalaya and Uttarakhand had 1 death each. (Source: https://www.mohfw.gov.in/)
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The total number of containment zones in Delhi reached 86 on May 22 after nine more were added, including three in central district and six in South West district.
The Delhi government has so far de-contained 33 such zones after they completed the mandatory 28 days since the last patient had tested positive.
Cases in Delhi peaked for the fourth successive day on May 22, with a third of the city’s total of 6,214 active cases added in the past four days.
Epidemiologists predict there may be a further rise in cases over the next few days, reported timesofindia.com May 23.
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Across the world the total number of Covid-19 cases had crossed the 5.2 million mark to reach 5,215,253 while a total of 338,431 had died as of May 23 at 2:02:42 PM (GMT-4), according to the Dashboard maintained by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University.
There were 96,837 new cases and 5,219 new deaths during the preceding 24 hours across 188 countries and regions.
The countries with the most number of reported cases thus far were US (1,601,434), Russia (335,882), Brazil (330,890), UK (255,544), Spain (234,824), Italy (228,658), France (182,015), Germany (179,730), Turkey (154,500), Iran (131,652), India (125,149), Peru (111,698), and China (84,081).
The countries with the most number of deaths were US (96,007), UK (36,475), Italy (32,616), Spain (28,628), France (28,218), Brazil (21,048), Belgium (9,212), Germany (8,241), Iran (7,300), Mexico (6,989), Canada (6,360), Netherlands (5,807), China (4,638), Turkey (4,276), Sweden (3,925) and India (3,728).
