India crosses grim milestone of 1 crore COVID-19 cases; 25,152 new cases in past 24 hours

New Delhi: India’s COVID-19 caseload surpassed the somber one-crore mark Saturday, adding 10 lakh cases in nearly a month, while the total number of recoveries surged to 95.50 lakh, according to the Union health ministry data. The country’s COVID-19 case tally had surpassed the 20-lakh mark on 7 August, 30 lakh on 23 August and 40 lakh on 5 September. It went past 50 lakh on 16 September, 60 lakh on September 28, 70 lakh on 11 October, 80 lakh on 29 October, and surpassed 90 lakh on 20 November. The health ministry’s data updated at 8 am on Saturday showed the total number of cases mounted to 1,00,04,599, and the death toll to 1,45,136 with the virus claiming 347 more lives in a span of 24 hours. However, the COVID-19 case fatality rate has further declined to 1.45 percent. There are 3,08,751 active cases in the country which constitute 3.08 per cent of the total caseload, the data stated. According to the Indian Council of Medical Research, a cumulative 16,00,90,514 coronavirus samples have been tested up to 19th December, 11,71,868 of them on Friday.