Maharashtra and Gujarat account for 60% of all Covid-19 deaths in India

Maharashtra and Gujarat together reported over 50 Coronavirus-related deaths on Tuesday, as the total number of dead in the country reached close to 1000. The two states alone account for almost 60 per cent all deaths in the country.

Ahmedabad once again reported 19 deaths on a single day, taking the city's death count to 129. Two days earlier too, it had reported 19 deaths. Twenty-five of the 31 deaths in Maharashtra came from Mumbai. Some of them had died a few days earlier but their tests were confirmed only on Tuesday. Together Maharashtra and Gujarat now have seen the death of at least 583 people.

Tuesday marked another peak in the daily increase of Coronavirus cases, with 1905 new infections being discovered. In keeping with the recent trend, a majority of these cases were reported from a handful of states. The top five states with maximum new cases on Tuesday – Maharashtra, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Delhi, Tamil Nadu – contributed 1503 of the 1905 cases or almost 79 per cent.

Maharashtra alone reported 722 new cases, while Gujarat, Delhi and Madhya Pradesh, had over 200 cases each. Uttar Pradesh had a relatively better day, with only 67 new cases.

In sharp contrast, three other states with large case-loads, Kerala, Karnataka and Telangana, have been adding patients at a very slow rate. In the last four days, Telangana, which has a total of 1007 positive cases, has added just 17 new cases. Karnataka, with a case load of 523, has seen only 23 new patients in the last four days, while Kerala has added 28 to reach a tally of 485.

Meanwhile, government data shows that while the number of districts in the red zone (classified as hotspots) had reduced from 177 to 129 in the last two weeks, the number of orange districts had increased from 207 to 250, probably as a result of some of the red districts falling into the orange classification now. The government also said that of the nearly 22,000 active cases in the country, only 80 patients were requiring ventilator support. Till Sunday, only 2.17 per cent of all infected persons in India were housed in an Intensive Care Unit, 1.29 per cent were on oxygen support, while just 0.36 per cent required ventilator support.

(Inputs from theindianexpress.com)