India's COVID-19 cases, deaths continue to surge

NEW DELHI, May 13  -- India's COVID-19 tally rose to 23,703,665 on Thursday with 362,727 new cases registered in the past 24 hours, while the death toll swelled to 258,317 with 4,120 deaths since Wednesday morning, the federal health ministry announced Thursday.

According to report by Xinhua news agency, there are still 3,710,525 active cases in the country, with an increase of 6,426 cases in the past 24 hours.

A total of 19,734,823 people have been cured and discharged from hospitals so far across the country.

The COVID-19 figures continue rising in the country everyday, as the federal government has ruled out imposing a complete lockdown to contain the worsening situation. Many states have also imposed night curfews and partial or complete lockdowns, it said.

Principal Scientific Advisor to India's Federal Government K. Vijay Raghavan had recently stated that a third COVID-19 wave was "inevitable" in the country.

Delhi has been put under a third successive lockdown till May 17. While some school examinations stand cancelled, others have been postponed in the wake of COVID-19 situation.

Xinhua also reported that so far, over 177 million vaccination doses (177,214,256) have been administered to the people across the country.

Presently the third phase of COVID-19 vaccination is going on covering all people aged 18 years and above.

Meanwhile, the federal government has ramped up COVID-19 testing facilities across the country, as over 309 million tests have been conducted so far.

As many as 309,448,585 tests were conducted till Wednesday, out of which 1,864,594 tests were conducted on Wednesday alone, said the latest data issued by the Indian Council of Medical Research on Thursday.  

-- BERNAMA