India clocks over four lakh cases for second consecutive week

The number of COVID-19 cases in India touched a new high last week as the country clocked more than four lakh cases for the second consecutive week. The country reported about 4.55 lakh cases and 6,726 deaths between August 17 and 23. This is the highest count of cases and deaths in a week.

On an average, India reported about 65,000 cases every day. The number increased by 3,000 from the previous seven-day average of 62,511 cases. Around 15 per cent of the total confirmed cases in the country was reported last week.

While daily counts on August 17 and 18 were 57,981 and 55,079 respectively, the cases saw an unprecedented spike in the succeeding days. On August 20, the daily number of cases was 69,652, which is the highest single-day spike, so far.

India is also showing progress in terms of recovery. The current recovery rate of the country is 75 per cent as on August 23. However, the recovery rate in the last week was even higher at 91.88 per cent. Last week saw the recovery of 4.18 lakh patients across the country. A total of 22.80 lakh patients have recovered, so far.

Though the death rate in India is slowing down, the number of deaths is constantly on the rise. The overall death rate of the country stands at 1.86 per cent, while in the last week, it was 1.48 per cent. The number of deaths was 6,726 in the last week. The total death toll had already crossed the mark of 50,000.

Increasing tests and decreasing test positivity rate is another important factor to look at when it comes to the progression of the pandemic in August. In the first week of August, the TPR was 10.26 per cent which came down to 8.45 per cent in the second week. In the third week, it again fell by an additional one per cent and stood at 7.61 per cent.

The country conducted 1.64 crore tests in August while about sixty lakh (59.82 lakh) tests were conducted during the last seven days.