COVID-19 cases in India cross 70-lakh mark

New Delhi: India's COVID-19 tally of cases raced past 70 lakh, 13 days after it had crossed the 60-lakh mark, while the number of people who have recuperated from the disease crossed 60 lakh, according to the Union Health Ministry data updated on Sunday.

The national recovery rate stands at 86.17 per cent.

The COVID-19 caseload mounted to 70,53,806 with 74,383 infections being reported in a day, while the death toll climbed to 1,08,334 with 918 people succumbing to the disease in a span of 24 hours, the data updated at 8 am showed.

India's coronavirus cases jumped from 10 lakh to 20 lakh in 21 days.Then it took 16 more days to race past 30 lakh, 13 days more to cross the 40-lakh mark and 11 days to go past 50 lakh. The cases rose from 50 lakh to 60 lakh in 12 days.

It took 110 days for the COVID-19 cases in the country to reach one lakh while it had taken 59 days more to go past the 10-lakh post.

For the third day in a row the active cases of COVID-19 remained below 9 lakh.

There are 8,67,496 active cases of coronavirus infection in the country which comprises 12.30 per cent of the total caseload, the data stated.

The COVID-19 case fatality rate due to the coronavirus infection was recorded at 1.54 per cent.

India's COVID-19 tally had crossed the 20-lakh mark on August 7, 30 lakh on August 23 and 40 lakh on September 5. It went past 50 lakh on September 16 and had crossed 60 lakh on September 28.

According to the ICMR, a cumulative total of 8,68,77,242 samples have been tested up to October 10 with 10,78,544 samples being tested on Saturday.

The 918 new fatalities include 308 from Maharashtra, 102 from Karnataka, 67 from Tamil Nadu, 62 from West Bengal, 60 from Uttar Pradesh, 48 from Delhi, 39 from Chhattisgarh and 35 from Andhra Pradesh.

A total of 1,08,334 deaths have been reported so far in the country including 40,040 from Maharashtra followed by 10,187 from Tamil Nadu, 9,891 from Karnataka, 6,353 from Uttar Pradesh, 6,194 from Andhra Pradesh, 5,740 from Delhi, 5,563 from West Bengal, 3,798 from Punjab and 3,557 from Gujarat.

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

"Our figures are being reconciled with the Indian Council of Medical Research," the ministry said on its website, adding that state-wise distribution of figures is subject to further verification and reconciliation.