India reports twice as many Covid infections as in all of last year

New Delhi, July 12 India has already reported more than twice as many Covid-19 cases in 2021 as it had all of last year, a USA TODAY analysis of Johns Hopkins University data shows.

India passed the mark early Sunday. Of the 30.8 million cases India has reported, two-thirds have come in less than 6 and 1/2 months of 2021, the report said.

India's COVID deaths, widely believed to be drastically undercounted, have added up to 259,302 this year, compared with 148,738 in 2020, the report added.

Only the United States has reported more cases than India, by a margin of about 3 million. At the current rate, India would surpass the US total in about 19 weeks. India's pace has plummeted in the last two months after a massive spring surge, while infections in the US have jumped in the last two weeks, it added.

The US also has the most recorded COVID deaths in the world with upward of 607,000, and Brazil ranks second at nearly 533,000.

At recent rates, Brazil would pass the US death toll in about 10 weeks, though the pace of reported deaths in the South American country has fallen by more than half in the last three months, while the pace of US deaths has stopped declining.

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