India's COVID-19 caseload breaches 30 lakh, just 8 days after it crossed 25 lakh

New Delhi, Aug 23: India's COVID-19 tally hurtled past the 30-lakh mark on Saturday night, just 8 days after it crossed 25 lakh, while the total number of recoveries too surged to 22.71 lakh.

This is the first time that the number of days taken to add five lakh cases has remained stagnant. The journey from 20 lakh to 25 lakh cases was also made in eight days.

India is the third worst-hit nation in terms of COVID-19 cases after the US and Brazil.

The Union health ministry on Saturday said the total number of recoveries has surged to 22,22,577 pushing the recovery rate to 74.69 per cent while the case fatality rate has further declined to 1.87 per cent. Recoveries exceeded active cases of the coronavirus infection by more than 15 lakhs.

India also crossed a significant milestone of testing more than 10 lakh samples for COVID-19 in 24 hours on Friday, taking cumulative tests to 3,44,91,073, the health ministry said on Saturday.