India overtakes Britain with fourth highest coronavirus death toll

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India Overtakes Britain With Fourth Highest Coronavirus Death Toll
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Press Association
India’s coronavirus death toll has overtaken Britain’s to become the fourth highest in the world with another single-day record increase in cases.

The Health Ministry reported 1,007 deaths in the past 24 hours, to make a total of 48,040, behind the US, Brazil and Mexico.

India’s confirmed cases reached 2,461,190 after a single-day spike of 64,553 in 24 hours, the ministry said.

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India is behind the US and Brazil in total positive cases. More than 70% of people infected in India have recovered.

(PA Graphics)
(PA Graphics)

The daily increase in newly reported infections was around 15,000 in the first week of July but jumped to more than 50,000 in the first week of August.

The ministry cited its testing efforts, with more than 800,000 tests in a single day, taking the cumulative total to more than 26 million.

Health experts say it needs to be higher, given India’s population of 1.4 billion.

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India’s two-month lockdown imposed nationwide in late March kept infections low, but it has since been eased and is now largely being enforced in high-risk areas.

The new cases spiked after India reopened shops and manufacturing and allowed hundreds of thousands of migrant workers to return to their homes from coronavirus-hit regions.

Subways, schools and cinemas remain closed.

Health workers in Barcelona province (Emilio Morenatti/AP)
Health workers in Barcelona province (Emilio Morenatti/AP)

In Spain, health minister Salvador Illa announced a range of new nationwide restrictions to help fight a surge in cases.

He said after an emergency meeting with leaders of Spain’s autonomous regions that authorities are shutting all discos and nightclubs across Spain.

Visits to nursing homes are limited to one person a day for each resident for only one hour, people are prohibited from smoking in public areas if they are unable to keep at least 2 metres apart, and police will begin cracking down harder on banned night-time street gatherings by young people to drink alcohol.

New daily cases in Spain have been steadily climbing since the country ended a more than three-month lockdown on June 21.

Authorities have officially recorded almost 50,000 cases in the past 14 days, an average of about 3,500 a day.

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