India recorded more than 4,000 coronavirus deaths in a day for the first time, the government said on Saturday (May 8).
The 4,187 new deaths took India’s overall toll to 238,270 since the pandemic started. It added another 401,078 new cases in 24 hours taking its caseload to nearly 21.9 million – second only to the United States.
Experts, who have expressed doubts about the official death toll, say India may not hit a peak in its current surge until the end of May.
There have been more than 82,000 recorded Covid deaths in the country since February 14, more than half of all earlier fatalities.
India has recorded a total of 238,197 Covid-related deaths so far.
On Friday, at least five states reported their highest daily death toll from the pandemic.
These included Karnataka, which saw a big surge in deaths with 592 people succumbing to the virus.
Other states where the highest daily tolls were recorded were Uttar Pradesh (372 deaths), Tamil Nadu (197), Rajasthan (164) and Himachal Pradesh (56).
Maharashtra continued to report the highest number of fatalities at 898. Other states where the toll continued to be high were Delhi (341), Chhattisgarh (208), Punjab (165), Haryana (162), Uttarakhand (137), Jharkhand (136) and Bengal (112), among others.
The total death toll crossed the 10,000 mark in Punjab and Chhattisgarh on Friday. In all, the Covid toll has topped 10,000 in eight states.
Punjab has the highest case fatality rate in the country CFR at 2.4%.
Meanwhile tycoons, Bollywood stars among other high profile residents are fleeing India’s shores on private jets as the coronavirus crisis escalates — but they are by no means the only ones, according to private jet charter company JetSetGo.
The situation in India has become so dire that even upper-middle class families are pooling their resources to make an escape, its co-founder and CEO Kanika Tekriwal told CNBC’s “Street Signs Asia.”
