Covid-19: India’s official death toll passes 300,000

India’s coronavirus death toll has passed 300,000.

The figure, as recorded by India's Health Ministry, comes as slowed vaccine deliveries have marred the country's fight against the pandemic, forcing many to miss their shots, and a rare but fatal fungal infection affecting Covid-19 patients has worried doctors.

India’s death toll is the third-highest reported in the world, accounting for 8.6 per cent of the nearly 3.5 million coronavirus fatalities globally, though the true numbers are thought to be significantly greater.

The Health Ministry on Monday reported 4,454 new deaths in the last 24 hours, bringing India’s total fatalities to 303,720. It also reported 222,315 new infections, which raised the overall total to nearly 27 million since the pandemic began. Both are almost certainly undercounts.

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The pandemic has swamped India’s underfunded healthcare system after spreading fast across the country.

In the capital New Delhi, residents have died at home with no oxygen as hospitals exhausted limited supplies. In Mumbai, Covid-19 patients have died in crowded hospital corridors. In rural villages, fever and breathlessness took people before they were even tested for coronavirus.

While the big cities have seen signs of improvement in recent days, the virus is not finished with India by any means. It appears to have already taken a toll in the country's vast rural areas, where a majority of the people live and where healthcare is limited.

India’s vaccination drive has also slowed recently, and many states say they do not have enough vaccines to administer.

The world’s largest vaccine-producing nation has fully vaccinated just over 41.6 million people, or only 3.8 per cent of its nearly 1.4 billion people.

On Monday, the federal government enabled walk-in registration at government-run vaccination centres for those aged between 18 and 44 to “minimise vaccine wastage”.

The first known Covid-19 death in India happened on March 12th, 2020, in southern Karnataka state.

It took seven months to reach the first 100,000 dead. The toll hit 200,000 deaths in late April. The next 100,000 deaths were recorded in just 27 days after new infections spread through dense cities and rural areas alike and overwhelmed healthcare systems.

Average daily deaths and cases have slightly decreased in the past few weeks and the government on Sunday said it is conducting the highest number of Covid-19 tests, with more than 2.1 million samples tested in the previous 24 hours. – PA