One year into Covid-19: India at 4th spot on global toll, Mexico third

On January 30 last year, India reported its first-ever case of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) after an Indian student of the Wuhan University in China was detected positive in the state of Kerala, according to the Union health ministry. Since then, the country has been one of the largest contributors of coronavirus cases and related fatalities. But on Friday, January 29,India dropped to the fourth position as far as cumulative toll is concerned as Mexico secured the third spot. From September, India was in the third spot after the Unites States and Brazil. According to worldometers figures, the United States has added the maximum number of deaths 447,459 followed by Brazil which has 222,775 deaths. Mexico added 1,506 deaths on Thursday, taking the toll to 156,000. According to news agency AP, due to an extremely low rate of testing, the actual toll to date can be more than 195,000. India’s cumulative toll stands at 154,010. In September 2020, India witnessed the worst situation with the highest number of cases (over 1 million) and deaths (nearly 16,400) in the first 14 days globally. Cases stood between a range of 75,000 to more than 90,000 during these days while the highest single-day toll was seen on September 8 (1,133). However, October proved to be a relief as the daily Covid-19 cases in the country were lesser than the daily recoveries. On October 28, the single-day tally fell below between the 37,000-mark and on December 22, less than 20,000 cases were registered and the deaths were at 301, lowest since June. In January this year, the daily deaths have been below the 200-mark and since the past two weeks and 18 of the country’s states and Union Territories (UTs) have reported one or fewer deaths a day on an average since last week. Meanwhile, the seven-day average of coronavirus deaths on Thursday had reached 140- the lowest in more than 8 months.       Source: HT