NEW DELHI: The
Covid-19 death toll
in India crossed 80,000 on Monday, with the
country
recording the highest fatalities in the world over the past fortnight. The last 20,000 deaths have come in just 19 days, at an average of more than 1,000 per day.
There were 1,070 deaths reported on Monday, taking the total toll to 80,737, as per data collated by TOI from
state governments
. In the 14 days of September, the daily death toll dipped below 1,000 only on one day — September 6, when the count was 994. So far, 15,364 fatalities have been recorded this month. Fresh cases dipped sharply on Monday to 80,663, down from 94,000-plus recorded on the previous day. This was consistent with the trend of a drop in cases every Monday because of lower testing as well as shortage of staff on Sundays.
However, India has now recorded the
second highest number
of recoveries from the virus in the world, after going past
Brazil
’s count of 35.7 lakh. Recoveries in India now stand at 38,49,152, as per TOI’s data. Only the US, with over 39.8 lakh cured patients, has a higher number of recoveries than India, according to worldometers.info. Fresh cases dropped in most of the worst-hit states on Monday, except three that reported their highest spike in infections — Odisha (4,198 new cases),
Madhya Pradesh
(2,483) and Rajasthan (1,730).
Maharashtra, after reporting over 22,000 new Covid-19 cases for the last five days, reported a significant dip at 17,066 cases on Monday, the lowest in 13 days, taking the total cases to 10,77,374. With this,
Maharashtra has more Covid-19 cases than Russia, the fourth most affected country in the world.