Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Friday once again warned India would record two million cases of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) by the second week of August, a day after the country reported a million infections.

© AP Photo/Anupam Nath
Congress party leader Rahul Gandhi.

India has now become only the third country in the world after the United States and Brazil with more than a million cases of the coronavirus disease.

The country crossed the million-mark in 137 days and half of these were in a hard nationwide lockdown announced in the early days of the pandemic.

“10,00,000 figures exceeded. If #COVID19 spreads at the same speed, more than 20,00,000 will be infected in the country by August 10,” Rahul Gandhi tweeted.

“The government must take concrete, planned steps to stop the epidemic,” he added.

Rahul Gandhi also attached his tweet from July 14 in which he had talked about the country’s infection tally crossing the million-mark during that week.

“This week the figure will cross 10,00,000 in our country,” he had tweeted in Hindi.

Gandhi had also tagged a news report quoting the World Health Organization (WHO) chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who had said that if concrete steps were not taken, the coronavirus pandemic would turn from bad to worse and that “there will be no return to the old normal for the foreseeable future.”

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The WHO director general said that while numerous countries have now brought their previously explosive outbreaks under control, namely those in Europe and Asia, “too many countries are headed in the wrong direction.”

Ghebreyesus, without naming specific politicians, also chastised political leaders for their “mixed messages” amid the coronavirus outbreaks, saying that they are “undermining the most critical ingredient of any response: trust.”

The Congress leader has been criticising the government’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic. Gandhi had on Monday questioned the Centre’s claims on battling Covid-19, asking if India was at a “good position” in the battle against the virus.

The country’s tally reached 1,004,652 with 36,247 new Covid-19 cases and 690 new fatalities putting the disease death toll in the four-and-a-half months of the outbreak at 25,594, according to an HT tally.

India had 343,268 active cases and the case fatality rate (CFR) or the proportion of people who succumbed to the illness from among known infections or was 2.5%.

The US, which has 3,648,250 cases and 140,518 deaths, has a fatality rate of 3.9%; and Brazil, with 1,978,236 cases and 75,697 infections, is at 3.8%.

Experts have also said the next million cases in India could take less than a month and that the focus now needs to shift to India’s rural areas.

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Follow the government’s latest guidance on safeguarding yourself during the coronavirus pandemic, including travel advice within and outside the country. The World Health Organization has also busted some myths surrounding coronavirus. The Ministry of Health’s special helpline is available at +91-11-23978046, ncov2019@gmail.com and ncov2019@gov.in.