With 85,940 COVID-19 cases and 2,752 deaths, India crosses China in COVID-19 tally

As the COVID-19 tally in India neared the 86,000-mark on Friday, while the death toll topped the 2,700-mark, India finally crossed China in the recorded number of positive cases of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) infection. As of 9:15 AM on this day, the COVID-19 tally in India has reached 85,940, which includes 53,035 active cases; 30,152 cured, discharged or migrated patients, and 2,752 deaths.

According to the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, as many as 3,970 new COVID-19 cases and 103 deaths were reported in the country in the last 24 hours, marking a significant spike of nearly 4,000 cases.

With this, the COVID-19 tally in India has surpassed China's count of 82,933 confirmed cases.

Maharashtra continues to be the epicenter of the coronavirus spread where the number of cases has witnessed an even large spike recently, as the state added as many as 1,576 fresh cases to the tally, data released by the health department said. According to the Health Ministry, Maharashtra has the highest number of cases with 29,100 positive cases of infection and 1,068 deaths.

Notably, Mumbai, the financial capital of the country, has become the hotbed of the coronavirus spread in the state where the number of cases has crossed the 17,500-mark and the death toll has topped the 650-mark as well. Mumbai alone accounts for 17,671 infections and 655 fatalities. The city reported 933 of the 1,576 new cases and 34 of the 49 deaths on Friday.

One of the real challenges in Mumbai is controlling the disease contamination in Asia's biggest slum -- Dharavi, which is an extremely densely-populated region. The entire Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) has reported 21,925 cases and 718 deaths, the state government data showed.

The Maharashtra government is most likely to extend the lockdown in the state till May 31 even as the Centre is yet to make an announcement on extension of the social distancing measures to stop the spread of coronavirus beyond May 17.

Maharashtra is followed by Tamil Nadu with 10,108 cases, which overtook Gujarat due to a recent massive spike in the number of cases. Gujarat is third on the list with 9,932 cases.

After Gujarat comes Delhi, where the COVID-19 figure stands at 8,895 with 3,518 patients recovered and 123 fatalities. Rajasthan has reported 4,747 cases of which 2,729 have recovered and 125 patients are dead.

Madhya Pradesh has reported 4,595 positive cases so far of which 2,283 patients have recovered and 239 patients have lost their lives due to the virus. In Uttar Pradesh, as many as 4,057 people have confirmed COVID-19, of which 2,165 recovered and 95 people succumbed to it.

In Kerala, which reported the country's first COVID-19 case, 577 people have been detected positive for coronavirus so far.

Meanwhile, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Friday announced the third tranche of the economic package, focusing on agriculture and allied industries. Announcing the package, Sitharaman said the package would focus on infrastructure and building capacities in the agriculture and allied activities.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi had on Tuesday announced a cumulative package of Rs 20 lakh crore to provide relief to various segments of the economy battered by coronavirus lockdown. The package includes already announced PM Garib Kalyan Yojana providing grains and cash to poor and Rs 5.6 lakh crore stimulus provided through various monetary policy measures by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).