While India reported a drop in daily COVID-19 cases in the last 10 days, the total number of coronavirus infections recorded in April and May so far stand 34 per cent higher than the total cases recorded in 2020, according to official data. Till December 31, 2020, the country had reported 1.02 crore infections, and between April 1 and May 21, the cases reported were 1.38 crore, government data analysed by News18 shows.
Further, in 2021, the total infections recorded were 1.57 crore – over 53 per cent more than those reported in 2020, as per official data from the Union Ministry of Health.
Also, in just 20 days of May, India reported over 12 per cent more cases than in entire April. The country saw more than 64.81 lakh coronavirus infections in April. The number in May till Friday morning was 72.69 lakh.
The daily coronavirus cases in India have come down since the last few days. Between May 1 and 21, India has recorded more than 35 per cent drop in daily cases – from 4.01 lakh on May 1 to 2.59 lakh on May 21.
The fresh coronavirus cases per day, that dropped in January and February to less than 10,000 for days, started rising again in March. From 15,510 cases recorded on March 1, the daily infection tally reached 26,291 on March 15. By March 31, this number was 53,480.
Recording a further increase, India broke all the previous records on April 4 with 1.03 lakh infections being reported in a day. The country crossed the 2-lakh mark in daily cases on April 15 and has been reporting over 2 lakh cases per day even now.
On April 22 the daily cases crossed the 3-lakh-mark, however, this came down on May 17 with 2.81 lakh cases. Since May 17, the daily rise in coronavirus cases in India remained below 3 lakh.
Further, on May 7 India recorded 4,14,188 cases in a day, the highest number of infections reported in 24 hours since the outbreak of the infection.