India joins US, Brazil with one million coronavirus cases

MUMBAI: India has become the third country in the world to record more than one million cases of the new coronavirus, behind only the United States and Brazil, as infections spread further into the countryside and smaller towns.

The figure is relatively low but is expected to will significantly in the coming months as testing increases. The pandemic has surged in recent weeks as it spread beyond the biggest cities, pushing India past Russia as the third-most-infected country last week.

Authorities imposed fresh lockdowns and designated new containment zones in several states this week, including the Bihar state and tech hub Bengaluru, where cases have spiked. Officials have struggled to enforce lockdowns and keep people indoors.

India recorded 34,956 new infections on Friday, taking the total to 1,003,832, with 25,602 deaths from COVID-19, federal health ministry data showed. This compares to 3.6 million cases in the United States and 2 million in Brazil – countries with less than a third of India’s population.

The last four months of the pandemic sweeping India have exposed severe gaps in the country’s healthcare system, which is one of the most poorly funded and has for years lacked enough doctors or hospital beds.

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The Indian government has defended a strict lockdown it imposed in March to contain the virus spread, saying it helped keep death rates low and allowed time to impove the healthcare infrastructure.

Rahul Gandhi, leader of the opposition Congress party urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to take concrete steps to contain the pandemic as the number of infections will double to two million by 10th August at this pace.

Several states including Bihar have witnessed a surge in cases in recent weeks as the lockdown has been eased to salvage a sagging economy.