The death toll has reached 18,655 after growing 4.6 percent over the last two days. This is slower than the growth in the preceding 48-hour period, when it went up by 5.6 percent.

So far this week, the number of cases has gone up by 18 percent and deaths by 13 percent since Monday.

The death count and number of cases in India have nearly doubled in the last twenty days. If the number of cases continues to rise at the same rate, it could hit the 700,000 mark by Tuesday and 1,000,000 mark in 13 days.

The continuing rise in cases poses a severe challenge for India’s strained medical capacity and overburdened health system.

Over the past few weeks, new infections and deaths have been rising faster in India than in most other badly-hit countries. The country’s death toll is the eighth worst in the world. Among countries with more than 5,000 deaths, India has recorded the second biggest spike in deaths and the biggest jump in confirmed cases over the past week.

Maharashtra now has 8,376 deaths, and Delhi’s toll has risen to 2,923. Gujarat is next on the list with 1,904 deaths, followed by Tamil Nadu (1,385), and Uttar Pradesh (749). These five states have recorded 82 percent of all covid-related deaths in India so far. Deaths have surged the most in the southern states of Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, and Andhra Pradesh in the last seven days. Gujarat’s toll has been rising much slower than other badly-hit states.

The case fatality rates vary widely. Five states have a higher fatality rate than the national average of 2.9 percent – Gujarat (5.5%), Maharashtra (4.3%), Madhya Pradesh (4.1%), West Bengal (3.5%) and Delhi (3.1%).

It is worth noting that data quality on cases and deaths vary across countries and regions because of factors such as differences in testing standards, and in protocols being followed for recording covid-related deaths.

Maharashtra has 79,927 patients still under treatment, the most in the country, followed by Tamil Nadu with 42,958 active cases and Delhi with 26,148. With their recent spike in infections, Karnataka is now fourth on the list with 10,612 active cases and Telangana fifth with 9,984. Out of the 235,433 active cases in India as of Saturday morning, the top five states together have 72 percent and the top ten states account for percent. Active cases exclude deaths and recoveries from the list of confirmed cases.

As of Saturday, 394,226 patients (61%) have now been discharged in India.

Among the ten states and union territories with the most active cases, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, and Telangana have seen the highest percentage spike over the past seven days. However, the increase in Telangana is now slower than last week’s spike following a ramp-up in testing.

Among districts, Thane, Chennai, Mumbai, Hyderabad, and Pune have seen the biggest jump in the last two days. These five districts account for 41 percent of the new cases over this period, data compiled by howindialives.com last evening shows. Other districts that have seen a sharp spike over the past two days are Bengaluru in Karnataka, Palghar in Maharashtra and Kancheepuram in Tamil Nadu.

District-wise data for Delhi are unavailable and hence not part of this list. The national capital (94,695 cases) is otherwise the worst-affected city, followed by Mumbai (82,070).

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So far, at least 430 districts have had deaths in the country. Mumbai (4,762 deaths) has reported the most deaths among all districts, followed by Ahmedabad (1,464) in Gujarat, Thane (1,063) in Maharashtra, Chennai (997) in Tamil Nadu, and Pune (854) in Maharashtra. These five districts account for 59 percent of deaths in the country.

Kolkata (402) in West Bengal, Solapur (297), Aurangabad (286) and Jalgaon (268) in Maharashtra, and Indore (234) in Madhya Pradesh are the other districts with the highest tolls. The top ten districts account for 69 percent of all the deaths nationally. The number of coronavirus infections is likely to keep increasing in the coming days, as India’s testing numbers continue to grow. According to the Indian Council for Medical Research, more than 9.5 million samples have been tested so far, including 242,383 on Friday.

Meanwhile, the global coronavirus case count has crossed 11 million, with more than 525,000 deaths, and more than 5.8 million recoveries (53%).