India reports decline in new Covid-19 cases, deaths

New Delhi (dpa), 10 May, 2021–India saw a significant drop in daily coronavirus infections on Monday, with 366,161 reported - after logging more than 400,000 cases for four straight days - but this would have likely been due to relatively lower testing at the weekend, experts said.

Covid-19 claimed 3,754 lives in the past 24 hours, according to the country’s Health Ministry. This was also a decline, after 4,000 deaths a day for two consecutive days. The overall death toll now stands at 246,116.

The new infections brought the overall caseload to more than 22.6 million, it said. Official data showed that 1,474,606 samples were tested on Sunday, almost 400,000 samples fewer than the 1,865,428 and 1,808,344 samples tested on previous days.

After sparking a health care crisis in India’s main urban centres of New Delhi and Mumbai, the surge in infections in rural regions and cities like information technology hub Bengaluru, posed a fresh challenge for authorities. Hospitals reported shortages of beds and medical oxygen as patients flooded the facilities.

Medical experts say mass vaccination is the only solution to India’s Covid-19 crisis, but the inoculation drive that began in January has faltered.