India today confirmed the world’s highest daily cases and deaths from coronavirus with over 800 new fatalities and more than 50,000 confirmed infections. 

The 52,972 new confirmed cases and 803 fatalities took India, the world’s second most populous country, past both the US and Brazil, the first and second in the world for both deaths and registered infections. 

The US today recorded 41,963 cases and 505 deaths while Brazil reported 16,641 infections and 561 fatalities.  

It was also the seventh straight day that India recorded over 50,000 new infections, taking the national total to 1,855,745, according to the Health Ministry database, which also showed the total number of fatalities is now 38,938.  

Though the figures seem to show India catching up with Brazil and the US, they do not take into account the context of the population. 

India’s coronavirus death rate is around 2.9 per 100,000 people, whereas the US and Brazil have a rate of 47.5 and 45.2 respectively. 

The Indian Ministry of Health has said half the deaths from the coronavirus in India are people below the age of 60. 

It said 37 per cent of the deaths were between 45-60. Global research indicates the disease is particularly fatal for the elderly. 

Health experts in India say this anomaly could be because deaths among the elderly in India weren’t detected or they weren’t tested. 

In India, several political leaders have either tested positive for the coronavirus or gone into quarantine over the last few days. 

Since Sunday, India’s powerful home minister Amit Shah and the chiefs of two big states have been hospitalized with COVID-19. 

On Monday, Tripura state’s chief minister and India’s law and justice minister also went into isolation.      

More than 18.35 million people have been reported to be infected by the novel coronavirus globally and 693,958 have died, according to a Reuters tally. 

Infections have been reported in more than 210 countries and territories since the first cases were identified in China in December 2019.