India's COVID-19 case tally crossed the 1-crore mark with 25,153 new infections on Saturday, becoming the second country after the US to record 1 crore cases. The Covid-19 tally crossed 1 crore 323 days after its first confirmed coronavirus case on January 30.
With the new addition, India's COVID-19 tally reached 1,00,04,599, including 95,50,712 recoveries and 3,08,751 active cases. The Covid-19 death toll has also surged to 1,45,136.
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The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) said of the total 16,00,90,514 samples tested up so far, total 11,71,868 samples were tested on December 18 itself. The Ministry of Health has said, "India's Covid recoveries have witnessed a steep exponential rise - from 50,000 in May to over 95 lakh in December. Recoveries are more than 30 times the active cases (currently only 3.14% of total cases)."
India took 29 days to go from 90 lakh to 1 crore mark, which is slowest since the country crossed 10 lakh cases. India took 168 days to cross the grim milestone of first 10 lakh cases.
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India has seen a significant decline in the number of cases since September 15. India's deaths per million are also one of the lowest among the most affected countries at 104. While the number of daily cases has reduced significantly now, India hit the all-time high tally of 98,795 on a single day on September 17.
Barring Delhi and a few other states, the coronavirus cases have seen a major decline in India, especially in southern states. Meanwhile, at least six coronavirus vaccine candidates are in different stages of clinical trials in India.
These candidates are Bharat Biotech-ICMR's Covaxin; Zydus Cadila's candidate; Gennova vaccine; Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine; and Sputnik V vaccine that's being manufactured by Dr Reddy's Lab, Hyderabad; and MIT-Biological E vaccine. Three companies -- Pfizer India, Bharat Biotech and Serum Institute -- have also sought emergency use authorisation in India as their clinical trials progress.
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