It took 183 days for India to cross 16 lakh coronavirus cases. The country had crossed the one lakh-mark in 110 days after the first case was reported in Kerala on January 30. More than 60 per cent of total cases in the country and over 50 per cent of total deaths have been recorded in July.

India cannot count on herd immunity to stop the coronavirus pandemic given its demography and scale, the Health Ministry said on Thursday, adding that the country will have to rely on a vaccine to fully beat COVID-19. Israel and India are conducting trials on a large sample of patients for four different kinds of technologies that have the potential to detect COVID-19 in about 30 seconds, including a breath analyser and a voice test, according to the Israeli government.

At 3.6 per cent, India’s rate of increase in cases is more than double than the 1.6 per cent in US and significantly higher than Brazil’s 2.3 per cent – the only two countries with a higher caseload.

Maharashtra — the country’s worst-hit state — reported a total of 10,320 new cases and 265 deaths on Friday, taking the total cases to 4,22,118 cases. The state has logged the highest number of cases in India followed by Tamil Nadu with 2,45,859 cases.

Andhra Pradesh has surpassed Delhi to become the third worst coronavirus-hit state in the country. The state has added over 30,000 cases to its tally in the last three days, taking its total of those infected by the deadly virus to 1,40,933, including 1,349 fatalities.

In Delhi, Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal has struck down two moves by the Arvind Kejriwal government as part of the third phase of easing the COVID-19 lockdown. Mr Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi Party government had allowed hotels to reopen from Saturday and a one-week trial for the weekly markets in the city as part of “Unlock 3”. Delhi registered 1,195 new coronavirus cases on Friday, taking the capital’s tally past 1.35 lakh. The number of deaths has risen to 3,963, health authorities said.

With a record single-day spike of 2,496 cases, the COVID-19 tally in West Bengal crossed the 70,000-mark on Friday. The state also reported 45 COVID-19 fatalities, taking the number of deaths to 1,581, the state health department said. State capital Kolkata witnessed the highest single-day spike in deaths with 21 fatalities due to the virus.

In Assam, the coronavirus cases crossed the 40,000 mark on Friday with 1,862 more people, including a nine-day-old baby, testing positive, Health Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said. Ninety-eight people havde died due to the virus in the state so far.

On Wednesday, the government had released the guidelines for Unlock3, the third phase of lifting of coronavirus-related restrictions across the country. Night curfew has been scrapped altogether and gyms and yoga institutes – outside containment zones- have been allowed to reopen

The novel coronavirus has killed nearly 675,000 people and infected at least 17.3 million since it emerged in China last December, according to news agency AFP. The WHO has said that coronavirus pandemic effects would be felt for decades.