India on Wednesday registered 42,625 new coronavirus cases, taking the country’s tally to 3,17,69,132 since the pandemic broke out in January last year. The new cases are 39.5% higher than Tuesday’s count of 30,549.
The country’s toll rose by 562 to 4,25,757. The number of active cases went up by 5,395 to 4,10,353. A total of 3,09,33,022 patients have recovered from the disease so far.
The Union health ministry on Tuesday said that the second wave of the pandemic was still raging in the country. It added that R-number, an indicator of the transmission of infection, had gone up in eight states. These states were Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Lakshadweep, Tamil Nadu, Mizoram, Karnataka, Puducherry and Kerala.
An R-number lower than 1 means that one patient is not even infecting one more person, on average, and if the number keeps falling, there will be fewer and fewer cases going forward. If R is more than 1, the infection can spiral out of control.
On an average, India has an R-value of 1.2.
Kerala recorded 23,676 new Covid-19 cases on Tuesday, pushing the total number of infections to 34.49 lakh. This was the state’s highest one-day rise in cases since May 29, the Hindustan Times reported. With 148 more deaths, Kerala’s toll rose to 17,103.
France enforced new Covid-19 rules in view of the surge in cases, AFP reported. Wearing masks was again made mandatory in the country’s coastal areas. French overseas territories Guadalupe and Martinique returned to lockdowns.
Globally, Covid-19 has infected 19.95 crore people and caused more than 42.45 lakh deaths since the pandemic broke out in December 2019, according to Johns Hopkins University.
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