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New Delhi, Jun 7: India registered its highest single-day spike of COVID-19 cases for the fifth consecutive day on Sunday, with 9,971 new infections taking the country's tally to 2,46,628, while the death toll rose to 6,929, according to the Union Health Ministry.

India registered 287 deaths in the 24 hours since Saturday morning.

India had raced past Spain on Saturday to become the fifth worst-hit nation by the COVID-19 pandemic. Now, only the US, Brazil, Russia and the UK are ahead of it.

The number of active COVID-19 cases stands at 1,20,406, according to the Health Ministry.

A total of 1,19,292 people have recovered and one patient has migrated, the Ministry said.

During the last 24 hours, a total of 5,220 COVID-19 patients have been cured, the ministry said.

"Thus, around 48.37 per cent patients have recovered so far," a senior ministry official said.

The tally of confirmed cases includes foreigners.

The Indian Council of Medical Research has further ramped up the testing capacity for detecting the novel coronavirus in infected persons.

The number of government labs has been increased to 531 and private labs to 228, taking the total number of labs to 759.

As many as 1,42,069 samples were tested in the last 24 hours, taking the total number of samples tested till now to 46,66,386.

Deaths in India per lakh population (0.49) are much lower than the world average of 5.17 and are the lowest among countries that have eased lockdown such as Germany (10.35), Italy (55.78), the UK (59.62) and Spain (58.06), as per a WHO situation report cited by the Health Ministry.

Cases in India per lakh population (17.32) are much lower than the world average of 87.74 and are the lowest among countries that have eased lockdown such as Germany (219.93), Italy (387.33), the UK (419.54) and Spain (515.61).

Of the 287 deaths reported since Saturday morning, 120 were from Maharashtra, 53 from Delhi, 29 from Gujarat, 19 from Tamil Nadu, 17 from West Bengal, 15 from Madhya Pradesh, 13 from Rajasthan, 10 from Telangana, three from Jammu and Kashmir, two each from Karnataka, Punjab and Chhattisgarh and one each from Kerala and Bihar.

Of the total 6,929 fatalities, Maharashtra tops the tally with 2,969 deaths, followed by Gujarat with 1,219 deaths, Delhi with 761, Madhya Pradesh with 399, West Bengal with 383, Uttar Pradesh with 257, Tamil Nadu with 251, Rajasthan with 231, Telangana with 123 and Andhra Pradesh with 73 deaths.

The death toll reached 59 in Karnataka and 50 in Punjab.

Jammu and Kashmir has reported 39 fatalities due to the disease, Bihar has 30, Haryana has 24 deaths, Kerala has 15, Uttarakhand has 11, Odisha has eight and Jharkhand has reported seven deaths so far.

Himachal Pradesh and Chandigarh have registered five COVID-19 fatalities each. Assam and Chhattisgarh have recorded four deaths each.

Meghalaya and Ladakh have reported one COVID-19 fatality each, according to the Health Ministry data.

According to the Ministry's website, more than 70 per cent of the deaths are due to comorbidities.

The highest number of confirmed cases in the country are from Maharashtra at 82,968, followed by Tamil Nadu at 30,152, Delhi at 27,654, Gujarat at 19,592, Rajasthan at 10,331, Uttar Pradesh at 9,733 and Madhya Pradesh at 9,228, according to the Health Ministry data updated in the morning.

The number of COVID-19 cases has gone up to 7,738 in West Bengal, 5,213 in Karnataka, 4,915 in Bihar and 4,510 in Andhra Pradesh.

It has risen to 3,952 in Haryana, 3,496 in Telangana, 3,467 in Jammu and Kashmir and 2,781 in Odisha.

Punjab has reported 2,515 coronavirus infections so far, while Assam has 2,397 cases. A total of 1,807 people have been infected with the virus in Kerala and 1,303 in Uttarakhand.

Jharkhand has registered 1,000 cases, Chhattisgarh has 923, Tripura has 747, Himachal Pradesh has 400, Chandigarh has 309 cases, Goa has 267, Manipur has 157, Nagaland has 107, and Puducherry and Ladakh have 99 cases.

Arunachal Pradesh has 47 COVID-19 cases, while Andaman and Nicobar Islands and Meghalaya have registered 33 infections each.

Mizoram has reported 24 cases and Dadar and Nagar Haveli has 19 cases, while Sikkim has reported seven cases till now.

"8,605 cases are being reassigned to states," the Ministry said on its website adding, "our figures are being reconciled with the ICMR."

State-wise distribution is subject to further verification and reconciliation, it added.

United Nations, Jun 6: The coronavirus disease has not "exploded" in India, but the risk of that happening remains as the country moves towards unlocking its nationwide lockdown that was imposed in March to contain the Covid-19, according to a top WHO expert.

WHO Health Emergencies Programme Executive Director Michael Ryan on Friday said the doubling time of the coronavirus cases in India is about three weeks at this stage.

“So the direction of travel of the epidemic is not exponential but it is still growing,” he said, adding that the impact of the pandemic is different in different parts of India and varies between urban and rural settings.

“In South Asia, not just in India but in Bangladesh and...in Pakistan, other countries in South Asia, with large dense populations, the disease has not exploded. But there is always the risk of that happening,” Ryan said in Geneva.

He stressed that as the disease generates and creates a foothold in communities, it can accelerate at any time as has been seen in a number of settings.

Ryan noted that measures taken in India such as the nationwide lockdown have had an impact in slowing transmission but the risk of an increase in cases looms as the country opens up.

“The measures taken in India certainly had an impact in dampening transmission and as India, as in other large countries, open up and as people begin to move again, there's always a risk of the disease bouncing back up,” he said.

He added that there are specific issues in India regarding the large amount of migration, the dense populations in the urban environment and the fact that many workers have no choice but to go to work every day.

India went past Italy to become the sixth worst-hit nation by the COVID-19 pandemic.

India saw a record single-day jump of 9,887 coronavirus cases and 294 deaths on Saturday, pushing the nationwide infection tally to 2,36,657 and the death toll to 6,642, according to the health ministry.

The lockdown in India, was first clamped on March 25 and spanned for 21 days, while the second phase of the curbs began on April 15 and stretched for 19 days till May 3. The third phase of the lockdown was in effect for 14 days and ended on May 17. The fourth phase ended on May 31.

The country had registered 512 coronavirus infection cases till March 24.

The nation-wide lockdown in containment zones will continue till June 30 in India but extensive relaxations in a phased manner from June 8 are listed in the Union home ministry's fresh guidelines on tackling the Covid-19 pandemic issued last week.

WHO Chief Scientist Soumya Swaminathan said the over 200,000 current coronavirus cases in India, a country of over 1.3 billion people, "look big but for a country of this size, it's still modest.”

She stressed that it is important for India to keep track of the growth rate, the doubling time of the virus and to make sure that that number doesn't get worse.

She said that India is a “heterogeneous and huge country” with very densely populated cities and much lower density in some rural areas and varying health systems in different states and these offer challenges to the control of Covid-19.

Swaminathan added that as the lockdown and restrictions are lifted, it must be ensured that all precautions are taken by people.

“We've been making this point repeatedly that really if you want behaviour change at a large level, people need to understand the rationale for asking them to do certain things (such as) wearing masks,” she said.

In many urban areas in India, it's impossible to maintain physical distancing, she said adding that it then becomes very important for people to wear appropriate face coverings when they are out, in office settings, in public transport and educational institutions.

“As some states are thinking about opening, every institution, organisation, industry and sector needs to think about what are the measures that need to be put in place before you can allow a functioning and it may never be back to normal.”

She said that in many professions working from home can be encouraged but in several jobs, people have to go to work and in such cases measures must be put in place that allow people to protect themselves and others.

“I think communication and behaviour change is a very large part of this whole exercise,” she added.

Sangod, May 1: Claiming that "drinking alcohol will surely remove coronavirus from the throat", Congress MLA from Sangod, Bharat Singh Kundanpur, has in a letter to Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot urged the reopening of liquor stores in the state, which have been closed in the wake of nationwide lockdown.

"When coronavirus can be removed by washing hands with alcohol, then drinking alcohol will surely remove virus from the throat," Kundanpur wrote in his letter dated April 30.

He also alleged that the sale of illegal liquor and bootlegging had become rampant in the state due to the closure of liquor stores during the lockdown.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi had on March 24 announced a 21-day nationwide lockdown as a precautionary measure to contain the spread of COVID-19. The lockdown was later extended till May 3.

As many as 2,617 COVID-19 cases have been reported in Rajasthan, as per the latest update by the state Health Department.