India passed four million COVID-19 cases on Saturday. Since July, India has had the third-highest number of confirmed cases of any country.
With 4,023,179 confirmed cases as of Saturday afternoon, India has almost as many as the second-highest country, Brazil. The U.S. still leads the world with 6.2 million total cases of the virus reported, according to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center.
India also has the third-highest number of deaths from the virus, which has killed almost 70,000 Indians, though the country is far behind the U.S. and Brazil in that count.
India crossed the 4 million number after seeing the highest daily increase since the pandemic began, with more than 86,000 cases reported Saturday. Almost a quarter of those came from the western state of Maharashtra, the Times of India reported.
India has been adding more new coronavirus infections than any other country for nearly a month. While infections have plateaued in an initial hotspot, the densely populated megacity of Mumbai, the virus is now spreading in rural areas where health care is already scant. Under-funded hospitals face shortages of beds, and patients have long waits for ambulances. (NPR)
