Covid-19: India reports 62 deaths, 2,547 coronavirus cases

The number of active coronavirus cases stands at 2,322, while 162 people have either been cured or discharged and one had migrated, according to health ministry data.

India’s coronavirus positive cases climbed to 2,547 on Friday, with the death toll across states rising to 62, the Union health ministry said.

The number of active coronavirus cases stands at 2,322, while 162 people have either been cured or discharged and one had migrated, according to health ministry data.

On Friday evening, six deaths were reported. Four deaths were from Telangana and one each from Gujarat and Punjab.

Maharashtra, which has reported the highest number of cases so far in the country, has also reported the most number of deaths (26) till date, followed by Gujarat (8), Telangana (7), Madhya Pradesh (6), Punjab (5), Delhi (4), Karnataka (3), West Bengal (3), Jammu and Kashmir (2), Uttar Pradesh (2) and Kerala (2).

Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar and Himachal Pradesh have reported one death each. The total of 2,547 cases in the country also includes 55 foreign nationals.

The highest number of confirmed cases of the coronavirus infection has been reported from Maharashtra followed by Tamil Nadu and Kerala.

In Delhi, out of the total 386 coronavirus cases, 259 are from the Nizamuddin Markaz, the Delhi Health Department has said. The national capital reported 91 new coronavirus positive cases in the last 24 hrs taking the total number to 386.

Maharashtra’s state health department data revealed that 67 new coronavirus positive cases have been reported on Friday. The total number of Covid-19 cases in the state stands at 490. The death toll in Maharashtra has jumped to 26, according to news agency ANI.

To help states in dealing with the coronavirus pandemic, Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Friday approved the release of Rs 11,092 crore to all states under the State Disaster Risk Management Fund (SDRMF). The money will be used for setting up quarantine facilities and arranging other necessities for containing the spread of coronavirus. The Home Ministry said the fund has been approved following an assurance given by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to chief ministers during his video conference on Thursday.

The Ministry of Home Affairs too contributed Rs 205 crore, drawn from one day’s salary of staff under its command, to the PM-CARES Fund to combat the health crisis in the country. The ministry has also written to state governments to take strict action against those who have been found attacking healthcare and frontline workers. Reports of healthcare workers as well as security personnel being attacked have come in from several parts of the country amid the lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic.

A number of Tablighi Jamaat members quarantined at a Ghaziabad hospital allegedly misbehaved with nurses on Friday, making lewd remarks and other obscene gestures, provoking the Uttar Pradesh government to invoke the stringent National Security Act (NSA) against them.

The six Jamaat members at the district hospital were shifted to an isolation ward set up at a private educational institute after complaints received against them.

They are among the thousands who attended a religious congregation at the organisation’s New Delhi headquarters in Nizamuddin, now identified as a coronavirus hotspot.