Nearly 10K cases for 3rd day, cured surpass active tally

India on Wednesday witnessed a spike of over 9,900 cases of the novel Coronavirus for the third consecutive day with 9,985 fresh cases, a Health Ministry data revealed.

For the first time the number of cured surpassed the total active cases. There were 1,33,632 active cases, while cured patients so far stood at 1,35,205.

At least 279 died in the last 24 hours, taking the toll to 7,745, according to the ministry data.

With 2,76,583 cases, India is now the fifth country most affected by the pandemic, since the first case was reported in January-end. It overtook Spain on Sunday, and is just 13,000 short of the UK tally of 2,90,581, according to data by Johns Hopkins University and Medicine.

Mumbai (with over 51,000) has tipped Wuhan (over 31,000) tally as Maharashtra's corona cases stood at 90,787, which is more than 31 per cent of the national tally, followed by Delhi with 31,309, Tamil Nadu with 34,914 and Gujarat with 21,014 cases.

The global number of COVID-19 cases has increased to over 7.2 million, while the deaths have surged to more than 411,177, according to Johns Hopkins University.

As of Wednesday morning, the overall number of cases stood at 72,38,723, while the toll increased to 411,177, the University's Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) revealed in its latest update.

The US continues with the world's highest number of confirmed cases and deaths at 19,79,411 and 1,11,989, respectively, according to the CSSE. Brazil is second with 7,39,503 infections. Then Russia (4,84,630), and then the UK (2,90,581) Regarding fatalities, the UK continues at the second position after the US with 40,968 Covid-19 deaths, which also accounts for the highest number of fatalities in Europe.

The other countries with over 10,000 deaths are Brazil (38,406), Italy (34,043), France (29,299), Spain (27,136) and Mexico (14,649).