India’s Covid-19 death toll tops 300,000, new cases fall to 222,315

India’s death toll due to the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) has reached 303,720 after 4,454 people succumbed to Covid-19 in the last 24 hours, the Union ministry of health and family welfare (MoHFW) dashboard showed on Monday morning. This makes India only the third country after the United States and Brazil, respectively, to record more than 300,000 fatalities due to the viral disease.

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In the last few days, India’s daily Covid-19 death toll has hovered around the 4000-mark, even crossing it on several days. On May 19, MoHFW’s data showed 4,529 deaths in the preceding 24 hours, making it the highest single-day death toll anywhere in the world since the beginning of the pandemic. In the 24-hour period before that, 4,329 related fatalities were recorded.

The country’s Covid-19 tally, meanwhile, has increased to 26,752,447 after 222,315 positive cases were detected in the 24-hour period. Recoveries climbed to 23,728,011 and the recovery rate, while active cases are at 2,720,716, down 84,683 from the previous bulletin.

On the vaccination front, the dashboard showed 942,722 more doses were administered, taking the total number of doses administered to 196,051,962.

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The government-run Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) said 1,928,127 tests were conducted in the last 24 hours, bringing total number of tests conducted thus far past the 330 million-mark to 330,536,064. This was for the first time since May 18 when less than two million tests were conducted in a day; on May 18, 1,869,223 tests were carried out.

Several states and Union territories (UTs) have extended restrictions till the end of the month to further break the chain of transmission of the virus. On Sunday, Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal announced the extension of an ongoing lockdown till May 31, remarking that the Capital would begin “unlocking” from the day if the number of daily cases in the city continue to fall. The financial hub of Maharashtra is also under a “mini-lockdown” till June 1.