India has reported 1,49,394 new Covid cases in the last 24 hours, the Union Health Ministry updated data informed on Friday. Additionally, the country's death toll from Covid-19 crossed 500,000 on Friday.
The country witnessed a single day rise of 1,072 Covid-29 deaths, taking the death tally up to 500,055 in the last 24 hours, the updated data stated.
The active cases comprise 3.42 per cent of the total infections, while the national Covid-19 recovery rate improved to 95.39 per cent, the ministry said. A reduction of 98,352 cases has been recorded in the active Covid-19 caseload in a span of 24 hours.
The country, which has the fourth-highest tally of deaths globally, recorded 400,000 deaths by July last year after the devastating outbreak from the Delta variant of the coronavirus, according to official data. Some experts believe the figures were much higher, as per Reuters report.
"Our study published in the journal Science estimates 3 million Covid deaths in India until mid-2021 using three different databases," Chinmay Tumbe, an assistant professor at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad who co-authored the study, told Reuters.
India's cumulative tally of 500,055 deaths on Friday included 1,072 fatalities reported over the last 24 hours, according to the federal health ministry. Out of this, 335 deaths were reported from the southern state of Kerala that has, for weeks, been updating data with deaths from last year.
Kerala, with less than 3% of India's 1.35 billion population, accounts for nearly 11% of the total deaths reported in the country.
"Some states such as Kerala are recording their backlog deaths under judicial pressure, although not all states have done that," Menon said.
Meanwhile in Gujarat, authorities have received over 100,000 claims for Covid-19 compensation, of which 87,000 claims have been approved, according to a senior government official.
The number of claims received is nearly ten times the official Covid-19 death toll of 10,545, as per government data.
"There has not been any under-reporting of Covid-19 deaths...The policy for paying compensation is very liberal as per the Supreme Court's directives, which is why the number of applicants is more than the Covid-19 deaths," the official said.
