NEW DELHI: India on Friday clocked its highest single-day COVID 19 case peak of 7,466 cases since the disease outbreak and first case on January 30.
The Health Ministry said 7466 cases rose over 24 hours to take the disease burden to 1,65,799 out of which 89,987 are active cases and 71,105 are cured. There are now 4,706 deaths in India.
The surge in cases coincides with movement of people within the country — close to four crore migrants headed to respective home states and thousands of Indians returning from abroad along with the domestic air passenger movement.
Asked why India was easing the lockdown while cases were rising, VK Paul, Member Health, NITI Aayog said the decision on lockdown specially the future post May 31 would be based on the need for balance between controlling the disease and normalising life.
“The top consideration in deciding on the lockdown would be the urgency of keeping the disease load below the peak which our health system can medically manage. That would be the consideration and that was why the lockdown period was used to ramp up the health infrastructure and number of isolation and ICU beds. We know 85 per cent people won’t have serious symptoms and only around five per cent will.”
Even today the number of people on ventilators in India is below one per cent of the active cases.