4,970 new Covid-19 cases in 24 hours push India's tally past 1 lakh-mark

India reported 4,970 new cases of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) cases and 134 deaths in the past 24 hours, taking the tally past the 100,000-mark, according to the Union health ministry on Tuesday.

The surge in numbers comes after nearly three months after the coronavirus pandemic began in the country and the second day of the fourth phase of the countrywide lockdown.

Moreover, the Covid-19 cases in India have doubled to over 100,000 from 50,000 in less than two weeks.

Union health minister Harsh Vardhan said on Monday that India has successfully managed to delay the peaking of the curve by imposing lockdown and other public health measures in a timely manner.

"There are several mathematical models which are predicting the course of the pandemic in India, but till now, we have managed to avoid the dramatically high numbers that several models predicted," Harsh Vardhan said.

There were 58,802 active cases in the country and 3,163 people have died of the highly-contagious disease even as the number of recoveries went up to 39,173, according to the Union health ministry.

India's worst-affected state, Maharashtra, now has more than 35,000 cases and 1249 fatalities, while Tamil Nadu and Gujarat have reported their Covid-19 tally is more than 11,000.

Delhi has over 10,000 Covid-19 cases so far as 168 people have succumbed to the disease.

The national capital has one of the highest testing rates in the country, with 6,919 tests per million population. The national testing rate for India is 1,540 tests per million population, according to the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR).

(Inputs and image from hindustantimes.com)