NEW DELHI: India now has the third highest Covid-19 caseload in the world after overtaking Russia on Sunday, even as new infections in the country rose to another record high of nearly 25,000 during the day. India also recorded 421 new deaths from the virus, taking the toll to over 2,300 in the five days of this month alone.
Total Covid-19 cases recorded in India were 6,97,887 late on Sunday, as per data collated from state governments. During the course of the day, the count went past Russia’s current caseload of 6,81,251, as per the Worldometers website. With this, only the US and Brazil have recorded higher Covid-19 cases than India.
As many as 24,912 new cases were detected in India on Sunday, taking the count in the five days of July so far to over 1 lakh. June, which was so far the worst month of the pandemic in the country, had witnessed a little over 4 lakh cases. Fresh cases have touch record highs on each of the past four days, starting with 22,045 infections reported on July 2.
With the daily tally of infections in Assam (1,202 new cases) and Uttar Pradesh (1,155) crossing 1,000 for the fi