India passed the milestone of three million people carrying the new coronavirus on Sunday, the Ministry of Health announced. The second most populous nation on the planet reported 69,239 new infections and 912 additional deaths on Sunday, bringing the total number of people who have died from Covid-19 disease since the start of the pandemic to 56,706, according to official figures . With Indian authorities only testing patients with symptoms, experts say these numbers are underestimated. For example, a serological study published last week found that more than a quarter of New Delhi residents may have already contracted the virus. India introduced a brutal national lockdown in late March, which it lifted in early June in an attempt to revive a bloodless economy.
Local authorities have imposed local re-containments in states and cities, particularly in the states of Haryana (north) and Punjab (northwest) where, in recent weeks, the number of confirmed cases has peaked. Previously, the main affected areas were the mega-cities of New Delhi and Mumbai, which have some of the largest slums in the world. “We are currently seeing a fairly large increase in the number of cases in India,” said K Srinath Reddy, of the Indian Foundation for Public Health, a non-governmental organization.
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