India has surpassed Brazil to become the second worst hit in the world by the coronavirus pandemic with a record daily spike of 90,802 cases taking the country’s tally past 42 lakh, Health Ministry data showed this morning.

This is the second consecutive day that the country registered over 90,000 new infections in 24 hours. The United States, which has the highest number of Covid-19 cases in the world, has over 62.75 lakh Covid infections so far, about 20 lakh more than India

The Covid-19 recovery rate in India has risen to 77.31 per cent with 69,564 patients recuperating from the disease in 24 hours pushing the total number of recoveries to 32.5 lakh, the Health Ministry said on Monday.

The case fatality rate has further dropped to 1.7 per cent, it said.

According to the Ministry, five states are contributing 60 per cent of the total cases with Maharashtra at the top accounting for 21.6 per cent cases, followed by Andhra Pradesh with 11.8 per cent, Tamil Nadu 11 per cent, Karnataka 9.5 per cent and Uttar Pradesh 6.3 per cent.

Maharashtra also contributed 26.76 per cent of the active cases in the country, followed by Andhra Pradesh 11.30 per cent, Karnataka 11.25 per cent, Uttar Pradesh 6.98 per cent and Tamil Nadu 5.83 per cent.

These five states combined presently contribute 62 per cent of total active cases, the Ministry said.

“On a continuous upward trajectory, India’s total recovered cases have crossed 32.5 lakh today, with 69,564 patients being discharged in the last 24 hours. This has resulted in the recovery rate touching 77.31 per cent,” it said in a statement.

The Ministry said various calibrated and focussed actions undertaken within the umbrella strategy of ‘test, track and treat’ have enabled early identification of cases through aggressive and wide-scale testing.

“Better ambulance services and seamless point-topoint management of patients to facilitate their timely hospitalisation before their health deteriorates has led to a high number of Covid-19 patients recovering and being discharged from the hospitals,” the Ministry said.

Delhi reports a dip in new virus cases, but deaths spike to 32: Delhi today recorded 2,077 fresh Covid-19 cases, which pushed its caseload to 1,93,526, according to the Delhi government’s latest health bulletin.

The national capital today recorded 32 Covid fatalities, which took the cumulative total of such deaths in the city to 4,599 so far, the health bulletin said.

The total count of recovered Covid patients was 1,68,384 including 2,411 patients discharged by various city hospitals during the past 24 hours. Delhi’s recovery rate stood at 87 per cent, the bulletin stated.

The hospitalised Covid cases in the city numbered 5218 and the count of active coronavirus cases was 20,543, the bulletin said.

The Covid patients getting treatment under the home isolation system numbered 11,613.

~With inputs from PTI~