Corona update: World, India cross grim milestones | 10 points

In the last 24 hours, the world has crossed a grim milestone of 10 million or 1 crore recorded cases of Covid-19. In the same time, India crossed 5 lakh cases. Some 5 lakh people have died worldwide due to novel coronavirus infection. This is nearly twice the number of deaths caused by severe influenza illnesses annually, according to the World Health Organisation data.

1. It was predicted in earlier models of coronavirus pandemic that it would slow down by June-end given the state of lockdown across the world. But now, the peak lockdown period is seemingly over across the globe. Europe has opened. India has opened. China did long back. The US is opening. And, coronavirus is still raging.

2. Health experts and epidemiologists say the worst is yet to arrive for Covid-19 pandemic. Lockdown, it appears, has only delayed the arrival of the peak of Covid-19 pandemic except for China and some European countries. Reports show almost 20 per cent of all coronavirus cases globally has been recorded in the last two weeks.

3. The coronavirus pandemic has been shifting its epicentre from China to Europe, then to the US and now it is Latin America. South Asia with India being the major contributor is the next while Sub-Saharan Africa is predicted as the region awaiting its turn.

4. The troubling aspect of this epicentre-shifting trend is that lockdown does not seem to be working in a way to contain the disease. It has just delayed the crisis becoming full-scale. The US and Brazil are still the biggest hotspots. And, if we club Mexico with them, they reported more than half of all Covid-19 deaths during the last week.

5. India has recorded more than 1.1 lakh fresh cases in the past six days alone. With over 19,900 cases on Sunday, India crossed 5 lakh-mark and about 19,500 new Covid-19 cases in 24 hours, the country continues to record one of the highest daily corona caseloads worldwide.

6. For six consecutive days, India has now reported more than 15,000 fresh Covid-19 cases. With 380 people losing their lives to Covid-19 in the last 24 hours, the death toll goes up to 16,475.

7. As of now, the recorded active coronavirus cases in India stand at 2.10 lakh. With recovery rate in mid-50 percentage points, 3.21 lakh Covid-19 patients have survived the pandemic in India.

8. Maharashtra is continuing its upward tick in fresh cases. It has reported more than 5,000 daily cases in the past three days. Maharashtra has reported 1.64 lakh cases with over 86,500 recoveries. It is consistently reporting more than 150 Covid-19 deaths every day. Its current corona death toll stands at 7,429.

9. Delhi and Tamil Nadu are also showing no definite sign of relent in the spread of Covid-19. Though since June 24, when Delhi reported close to 4,000 cases, the daily reporting of fresh cases has come down to under 3,000 for the second day in running. Still, the city has over 83,000 cumulative caseloads. Comforting news, if at all, is that over 52,600 patients have recovered in Delhi, with 2,623 losing their lives.

10. Meanwhile, Karnataka joined the dubious league of states reporting more than 1,000 cases in a day. It is the fifth such state in the country after Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Delhi and Telangana. It reported 1,267 fresh cases on Sunday with 783 being corona positive in Bengaluru alone.