Coronavirus outbreak: In less than fortnight, COVID-19 cases spikes over three times in India

New Delhi, May 15: The number of COVID-19 cases in India has shot up more than three times in less than 20 days. On Thursday, close to 4,000 new cases were discovered, taking the total number of confirmed cases above 81,000.

According to the Health Ministry, about 53,000 cases are active and more than 28,000 had recovered from the disease.

As expected earlier, Tamil Nadu over took Gujarat to become the highest second state with COVID-19 caseload. But, the southern state has shown a slight slowdown in the last two days. On Thursday, Tamil Nadu reported 447 new cases where it took the state to the second position.

Presently, Tamil Nadu has 9,674 confirmed cases, a large number of them having been contributed by the Koyambedu market cluster in Chennai, while Gujarat, where 324 more people tested positive on Thursday, has 9,592.

Maharashtra can be seen way ahead with 27,524 confirmed cases. Also, it can be seen that Mumbai alone has more cases than any other state.

Despite the restrictions on movement having eased, several travellers have become new carriers of the novel coronavirus. In many states, particularly those who are receiving their people working in other states, a bulk of new cases are among those who have been on the move in the last few days.

Presently, Odisha is a state with the fastest-growing coronavirus numbers, reported 61 new cases, almost all of them among returning workers or their immediate contacts. The state now has 672 confirmed cases.

Similarly, Punjab is facing similar problem from a few days ago. A large number of pilgrims returning from Nanded in Maharashtra having tested positive, seems to have crossed the hump as of now. Recently, the number of new cases have come down considerably.

Delhi, the national capital of India has put up efforts to adjust the deaths that have happened in the last few days but were not counted in official bulletins.

On May 14, the Delhi government added nine more deaths to its tally, taking the total to 115. None of these deaths had happened in last 24 hours.