India’s covid count on Sunday highest in world, records a single-day spike of 53,641 cases

NEW DELHI: For the first time, India added the highest number of fresh Covid-19 cases among all countries on Sunday. India’s count of 53,641 cases on the day was higher than the infections detected in the US (49,038) and Brazil (24,801), the two countries that have the highest caseloads of the virus, according to data from worldometers.info.

India also reported the world’s second highest number of Covid cases in a Monday-to-Sunday week for the first time, overtaking Brazil and behind only the US.

India reported 3,69,588 cases during last week (July 27-Aug 2), higher than Brazil’s count of 3,13,776. The US logged 4,41,808 cases during the period. In the previous week (July 20-26), India’s count (317,892) was just behind Brazil, which had added 320,005 cases. The US had recorded 4,73,289 cases that week.


On Monday, fresh Covid-19 infections recorded in India dropped to 49,134, the first time in six days that the daily count had dipped below 50,000. However, deaths from the virus rose to 814, the second-highest daily toll so far after 848 fatalities were recorded on Saturday.

The lower number of new cases is consistent with the trend of a drop in the daily count on Mondays, which has held true for nearly three months now. Also, the number of daily tests has been falling since India conducted a record 6.4 lakh tests on Thursday. While the number of tests on Friday was 5.25 lakh, it dropped further on Saturday to 4.63 lakh and on Sunday to 3.81 lakh, according to the covid19india.org website.

Tamil Nadu recorded 5,609 new cases on Monday, its lowest count since July 21. However, the state’s Covid-19 toll has been rising even as the number of fresh cases slowly dip. There have been 500 deaths in the last five days, including 109 on Monday, the first time the daily toll touched three figures. The time it takes for the number of deaths to double has dropped to 19 days from 24 days on July 28. However, the case fatality rate for the state, at 1.6%, is still one of the lowest among high prevalence states.

For the third day in a row, Maharashtra’s discharges were more than its fresh addition of Covid-19 cases. Maharashtra on Monday added 8,968 new cases, taking its total cases to over 4.5 lakh. A total of 10,221 patients were discharged on Monday, taking the discharges in the state to 2,87,030. The recovery rate of Maharashtra jumped to 63.7%, very close to the national rate of 64%.

The daily addition of cases in Mumbai dropped below 1,000 on Monday after five days of adding 1,000-plus cases daily. The city had reported 700 cases in a day, its lowest addition in 77 days, on July 28. However, after that day, daily detections increased to 1,000-plus once again. On Monday, 970 cases were detected.

Andhra Pradesh reported 7,822 new Covid-19 cases on Monday, taking the cumulative tally to 1,66,586. The death toll increased to 1,537 with 63 more people succumbing to the disease, while 5,780 people were discharged in the last 24 hours. There are currently 76,377 active cases with 88,672 recoveries and 1,537 deaths.

Telangana reported a sharp dip in cases, from 1,891 on Sunday to 983 on Monday, while 11 deaths were reported. The fall in new cases, authorities said, could be due to low testing. As against 19,202 samples tested a day back, only 9,443 samples were tested on Monday.

“Samples have piled up at certain laboratories due to shortage of staff because of festivals, and the weekend. In fact, the number of people coming forward for testing has dipped,” said an official from the state health department.

Karnataka reported 4,752 new cases while recording an all-time high number of discharges for the second consecutive day. While 4,776 patients were declared cured and discharged, the state reported 4,752 new cases taking the total number of the infected to 1,39,571. The state witnessed 98 deaths, taking the toll to 2,594. Bengaluru accounted for 27 of the deaths. The under-5,000 cases the state reported in the past 24 hours came on the back of the total number of tests dropping to 27,989 tests, including 9,915 RT-PCR tests. The state has been conducting 33,000 to 36,000 tests a day in the past few days.