India Surpasses Brazil, Now 2nd Hardest-Hit by Coronavirus

Following days of record daily jumps in coronavirus cases, India seems to be getting into its main peak.

This morning, India has surpassed Brazil to rank second in the list of the hardest-hit countries by the pandemic after a record spike of 90,802 fresh cases in the last 24 hours taking the country's tally past 4.2 million. It has reported 71,642 deaths, the third-highest in the world.

The Union Health Ministry data showed that this is the second consecutive day that the country registered over 90,000 new infections in 24 hours.

The rise, mostly come from five states, comes as the government continues to lift restrictions to try to boost an economy that lost millions of jobs when the virus hit in March.

For the last seven days India's caseload has galloped, adding more than 75,000 daily infections per day. More than 60% of the active cases are coming from the states of Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh, India's most populous state.

Cases have also begun spiking in the capital, Delhi, as well, with more than 2,700 infections recorded on Thursday, the city's highest in more than two months.

An upsurge of Covid-19 in many rural areas has also led to an uptick in numbers. The virus has struck a remote tribe in India's Andamans islands, with 10 members of the Greater Andamanese testing positive over the past month.

The rise in cases is also partly a reflection of increased testing - the number of daily tests conducted across the country has risen to more than a million.