India beats Russia for third highest coronavirus case count
Amy Kazmin in New Delhi
India has overtaken Russia as the country with the third highest number of coronavirus cases in the world, after several days in which the South Asian nation of 1.3 billion people detected more than 20,000 new cases per day.
India, which has had one of the lowest coronavirus test rates of any major economy, has now detected more than 697,410 coronavirus infections, up from 680,280 in Russia, according to the Johns Hopkins University coronavirus tracker.
India now ranks third behind the United States and Brazil as the countries with the highest number of known coronavirus cases. Health care systems in many cities, including India’s IT hub Bangalore, struggle to keep up with the tension.
However, of those known to have been infected with the virus, only 19,693 have died, far fewer than those in European countries such as the United Kingdom, Spain and Italy, which have fewer confirmed cases but a much larger population.
Public health officials believe that the true burden of the Indian coronavirus is likely to be significantly higher, as India’s testing rate continues to lag far behind other countries, as different states have attempted to restrict testing to minimize severity. of the pandemic in its geographies.
India has conducted only 7,224 tests for coronaviruses per million people, compared to 15,667 per million in Brazil and 113,588 tests per million people in the United States, according to Worldometer.
Several cities in India, including Guwahati in the tea-growing state of Assam and Trivandrum, the state capital of Kerala, are now imposing new draconian blockades in a bid to stem the spread of the virus.
