Covid-19: India Passes Brazil, Becomes Country with Second Highest Number of Cases

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – In a moment of global pandemic acceleration, India passed Brazil and on Monday, September 7th, and became the second-highest country in the world with cases of coronavirus behind only the United States.

Now, the second-most populous nation on the planet, with 1.3 billion inhabitants, records just over 4.2 million Covid-19 infections since the start of the pandemic, according to the Ministry of Health, while Brazil records 4.13 million cases and the United States, 6.27 million infections, according to Johns Hopkins University figures.

Despite the alarming data, India has not interrupted the process of easing confinement measures. On Monday, the subway reopened in most cities, including New Delhi and Mumbai, two important epidemic spots, after service was interrupted for nearly six months.

The growth of new cases is progressing at a “quite alarming” rate, said virologist Shahid Jameel of the Wellcome Trust/DBT India Alliance.

“Over the past two weeks, the average has grown from almost 65,000 to 83,000 cases per day, an increase of 27 percent in two weeks and two percent per day,” Jameel told AFP.

Third in death toll

To date, the Indian government has recorded 71,642 deaths caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, below only Brazil (126,650 fatalities) and the United States (188,941).

However, many experts believe that there is underreporting in India due to the relatively low number of tests and issues in identifying the causes of deaths.

India, which has some of the most densely populated cities on the planet, is the country that registers the highest number of new daily cases. The number of infections passed the four million mark on Saturday, only 13 days after passing the three million mark.

The Asian country is organizing over 10 million tests per day and expects to increase this number in the coming days. To this end, the Indian Council for Medical Research, which coordinates the government’s response, announced that from now on a medical request will not be required to perform the tests.

“This will allow us to detect more asymptomatic cases, which are the real source of this growth in India,” said Jameel. “We must run more tests in rural districts and villages since two-thirds of cases are from these regions,” he added.

The impact of Covid-19 led to a 23.9 percent drop in India’s GDP between April and June.

Source: Veja

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