Coronavirus: India becomes third country to cross 1-million Covid-19 cases

NEW DELHI: India on Friday became the third country in the world to record more than one million coronavirus cases, behind only the United States and Brazil.

With a record single-day surge of 34,956 cases, India’s Covid-19 tally zoomed past ten lakh on Friday, just three days after it crossed the nine-lakh mark, according to the Union health ministry data.

The total coronavirus caseload in the country surged to 10,03,832, while death toll mounted to 25,602 with the highest number of 687 fatalities recorded in a day, the data updated at 8am on Friday showed.

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However, despite crossing the 1-million mark of total coronavirus cases on Friday, the actual caseload of Covid-19 patients in the country is 3,42,473, and it has been steadily declining, the health ministry said.

A total of 22,942 people recuperated in the past 24 hours, the highest number of recoveries in a day, taking the total number of recovered cases to 6,35,756 on Friday.

The ministry said the current caseload remains manageable because of “proactive measures of containment including house-to-house survey, perimeter control activities, timely contact tracing and surveillance of containment zones, aggressive testing and timely diagnosis of cases”.

It took 110 days for the Covid-19 cases in the country to reach one lakh and just