India became the third country to report over a million (10 lakh positive) cases of COVID-19 after it reported nearly 35,000 new cases in the last 24 hours. The country took 110 days to report the first lakh cases, but the move from 9 lakh to 10 lakh came in a span of 3 days.
The country also doubled its count from 5 lakh cases to 10 lakh cases in only 20 days. It took the country 149 days to report the first 5 lakh cases. India has been grappling with the COVID-19 outbreak since January 30 but the most number of cases were witnessed in the month of June after it announced 'Unlock 1'. The country was under three different lockdowns since March 25, when it had only reported 627 cases.
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The line graph below shows the number of days India took to report 1 lakh new cases since the first case was reported on January 30.
According to the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), its over 1,300 lab testing facilities tested 3,33,228 samples on July 16 of which 34,956 tested positive. The country, thus has a positivity rate of 10.49% as of the cases reported and tests conducted on July 16 and reported on July 17. On Sundays, there are lesser tests conducted and reported in the country.
Maharashtra, Delhi, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Telangana have the highest contribution in the over 5 lakh new cases reported in the last 20 days. The graph below shows how all the various states have contributed to the country's doubling of cases in the last 20 days. Southern states of Karnataka, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh have surpassed Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal and Rajasthan in reporting a higher number of daily cases to emerge as new COVID-19 hotspots in the country.
Only the United States of America and Brazil have higher cases than India, currently. India has reported 25,602 deaths, so far. OVer 6 lakh people have recovered from COVID-19. There are around 3.5 lakh currently active cases in the country, of which 1.14 lakh are from Maharashtra.
While two indigenous vaccines by Bharat Biotech and Zydus Cadilla in initial stages of human trials, India's Serum Institute of India is going to be producing over a billion doses of Oxford's inactivated adenovirus COVID-19 vaccine. These three Indian entitites are a part of the160 vaccine candidates that are in the race for producing the first COVID-19 vaccine to fight this pandemic which has affected over 13.9 million people across the world.
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