With 190,535 cases, India exceeds Germany and France even as it begins to ease the world’s largest virus lockdown.
India has more than 190,000 coronavirus cases, the seventh most worldwide, even as the South Asian country begins to reopen the world’s largest lockdown to contain the pandemic.
More states opened up and crowds of commuters trickled onto roads on Monday in many of India’s cities as a three-phase plan to lift the nationwide lockdown started, despite an upward trend in new infections.
India’s health ministry on Monday said the country had 190,535 confirmed coronavirus cases, exceeding that of Germany and France. With 230 deaths in the past 24 hours, the total death toll stands at 5,394.
The new cases are largely concentrated in six Indian states, including New Delhi, the capital.
More than 60 percent of India’s COVID-19 fatalities have occurred in just two states – Maharashtra, the financial and entertainment hub of India, and Gujarat, the home state of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The lockdown, however, remains in place until June 30 in the containment zones – areas that have been isolated due to coronavirus outbreaks.
