India' Covid-19 death toll crosses 4 lakh mark, 46,617 new cases

New Delhi, July 02: With 853 fresh fatalities, India became only the third country to report over four lakh Covid-related deaths after the US and Brazil. Of these, Maharashtra accounts for 1,22,197 deaths, followed by 35,134 from Karnataka, 32,721from Tamil Nadu, 24,981 from Delhi, 22,601 from Uttar Pradesh, 17,735 from West Bengal and 16,072 from Punjab.

The health ministry stressed that more than 70 per cent of the deaths occurred due to comorbidities.

Reportedly, India's deaths per million population is by far the lowest at 287. It's 916 in Russia and between 1,000 and 2,000 for France, Mexico, the US, and UK.

India's daily caseload of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) witnessed a further dip, as the country recorded 46,617 new Covid-19 cases in the 24 hours ending 8 am Friday, taking the total to over 3.04 crore.

A net decline of 13,620 cases has been recorded in the total number of active COVID-19 cases in a span of 24 hours.

Also, 18,80,026 tests were conducted on Thursday, taking the total cumulative tests conducted so far for detection of COVID-19 in the country to 41,42,51,520, while the daily positivity rate was recorded at 2.48 per cent. It has been less than five per cent for 25 consecutive days, the ministry said.

Weekly positivity rate has declined to 2.57 per cent, according to the health ministry.

Recoveries continue to outnumber daily new cases for 50th consecutive days.

The number of people who have recuperated from the disease surged to 2,95,48,302, while the case fatality rate stands at 1.31 per cent, the data stated.

India's COVID-19 tally had crossed the 20-lakh mark on August 7, 30 lakh on August 23, 40 lakh on September 5 and 50 lakh on September 16.It went past 60 lakh on September 28, 70 lakh on October 11, crossed 80 lakh on October 29, 90 lakh on November 20 and surpassed the one-crore mark on December 19. India crossed the grim milestone of two crore on May 4 and three crore on June 23.