New Delhi - India reported another record spike of 28 637 new
Covid-19 infections on Sunday, as the virus continues to spread at a
rapid pace.
The total tally of infections, according to a Health Ministry bulletin, is 849 553, with 22 674 deaths, 551 of them occurring since Saturday morning.
On a positive note, the rate of recoveries has increased to almost 63
percent. More than 500 000 patients who contracted the disease have
been cured, according to the Health Ministry.
The viral infection has been spiralling in India over the past month
as a prolonged lockdown was eased and people resumed work at
factories, businesses and offices.
The last 100 000 infections came in just four days.
India had made the right choices in response to the pandemic,
Minister for External Affairs Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said in
response to criticism of the government's handling of the lockdown
and its easing.
"In our case, recognising our capabilities and our limitations, we
opted to rely very substantially on social distancing," Jaishankar
said at the India Global Week 2020 event on Saturday.
"So we went for a very early lockdown, we went for a very early
travel restriction and the result of that, three months down the road
... yes, the actual caseload today is large, it is not large in
proportion to the population," Jaishankar said.
India, with a population of 1.3 billion, now has about 12 percent of
the world's Covid-19 caseload - and this is expected to rise.
It ranks third after the United States and Brazil among countries
with the largest number of infections.