India’s total coronavirus cases surged past the 25 million mark on Tuesday, boosted by 263,533 new infections over the last 24 hours, while deaths from Covid-19 rose by a record 4,329.

India becomes the world’s second nation, after the United States, to pass the grim milestone. The country’s total case load is now at 25.23 million, while the death toll is at 278,719, according to health ministry data.

It has been 12 days since the daily count of cases peaked. The cases have been on a decline after that. Since the death curve usually has a two-week lag, it is expected that the death count would also begin to come down in a few days’ time.

In the period, however, it is possible that this count goes up further, because lots of states are reporting deaths that happened a few days to a couple of weeks earlier.

Maharashtra, for example, more than 1,019 deaths on Monday. Of these, 289 had occurred between Saturday and Monday, while 227 were from the week before that. Another 484 deaths happened more than a week ago, but had so far not been included in the state tally. The state also reported 19 deaths among Covid19 patients that were assessed to have been caused by other ailments.

Other states also reported deaths from previous days. There is an administrative lag in reporting of deaths, that sometimes extends to several weeks. The 476 deaths reported by Karnataka, for example, included a few that occurred in March. Several of these were from April.

Right now, five states — Maharashtra, Karnataka, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, and Tamil Nadu – have been reporting at least 300 deaths every day on average. On Tuesday, a relatively smaller state like Uttarakhand reported 223 deaths, though more than 80 of those were from previous days. Twelve states have been reporting 100 deaths or more.

Since the start of this month, 66,866 people are reported to have died because of Covid-19, making it the deadliest month during the pandemic. April was the worst month for India in terms of number of infections. Close to 70 lakh infections had been detected during that month. But its impact on mortality is being felt only now. In April, close to 49,000 deaths had been recorded.

BDST: 1545 HRS, May 18, 2021
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