India's 1 million Covid cases see it rank 106th in the world with 658 per million: Centre

Former Congress President Rahul Gandhi has delivered a dire forecast for India in his latest attack at the government over the Covid pandemic. He said India's COVID-19 figure would surpass the 20 lakh mark if cases continue to increase at the same speed. Taking to Twitter, Rahul Gandhi said in Hindi, "the (COVID) figure has surpassed 1,000,000. If COVID-19 spreads at the same rate then by August 20, there will be over 2,000,000 cases. The government should take strong and decisive steps to stop the Pandemic." 

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In a response to alarm over India crossing 1 million cases, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare in a series of tweets explained India is better-poised fight against the pandemic in comparison to other advanced countries.

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India's COVID-19 picture

On July 17, India reported yet another highest single-day rise with 34,956 COVID-19 cases. However, it is pertinent to note that the rise in COVID-19 tally is an outcome of mass COVID-19 testing across the country due to which more people can be detected and treated for the virus, in turn, increasing the recovery rate and reducing the death rate even further. 

India has carried out over 12 million COVID-19 tests and stands second in the world after the United States which has done 42 million tests so far, as per the White House. On July 16, the country conducted 3,33,228 tests and the total number of tests done so far stands at 1,30,72,718, according to the Union Health Ministry.

Besides, India's recovery rate is getting better by the day. Currently, the recovery rate stands at 63.33 percent, which means the active cases are only one-third of the total number of COVID-19 infections reported in the country. The government has said that the recovery-to-death ratio stands at 96 to nearly four percent.