NEW DELHI:
Kerala reported more than 20,000 fresh Covid-19 cases for the fifth day running while the rising trend in
Tamil Nadu and
Karnataka continued, as India logged more than 42,000 new cases of the virus on Saturday.
For the fifth straight day, India’s daily count stayed over the 40,000-mark as 42,052 were recorded on Saturday. Kerala accounted for 20,624 new cases, while
Maharashtra logged 6,959.
Tamil Nadu’s daily count rose marginally for the third day running. The state reported 1,986 new cases, up from 1,947 on Friday. The increases have only been incremental but these have broken a 69-day trend of an uninterrupted decline in daily cases. Karnataka registered 1,987 fresh cases, up from 1,890 on Friday.
India recorded 540 deaths on Saturday. Deaths from the virus too have seen an uptick this week (not counting old fatalities added to the toll last week). Friday’s toll of 540 was the fifth straight day when deaths remained above 500.
Meanwhile, 12,44,696 new
Covid
cases were recorded in July, a 45% drop from last month’s total of over 22.3 lakh. As compared with May, the peak of the second wave, the July count was down to just 14%. However, for the first time since the May peak, cases plateaued and then started rising marginally in July. The case count in the last two weeks of July was nearly the same as the tally in the first two weeks of the month.