NEW DELHI (Reuters) – India reported 40,953 new cases of coronavirus on Saturday, the biggest daily jump in nearly four months, with its richest state and economic column in Maharashtra accounting for more than half of infections.
Deaths rose 188 to 159,404, the health ministry said, noting a recurrence of the virus in the world’s third most affected country, after the United States and Brazil.
Some regions of India have already imposed restraining measures, including restaurant blockades and closures, and several are being considered.
Doctors blamed the new wave of infection on people’s relaxed attitudes towards masked clothing and other measures of social distancing, warning that hospital wards were filling up quickly in states like Maharashtra.
Maharashtra has reported 25,681 cases, including 3,000 in Mumbai’s financial capital in the past 24 hours.
The state of 112 million people imposed a blockade in some districts and put curbs in cinemas, hotels and restaurants by the end of the month. Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray warned that a wider blockade is an option, according to local media.
The increase in the number of COVID-19 cases in India peaked at almost 100,000 a day in September and steadily declined until the end of last month.
In addition to Maharashtra, the Indian states of Punjab, Karnataka, Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh have reported an increase in new cases.
The capital, New Delhi, has reported a steady rise in infections over the past two weeks, prompting city authorities to increase an immunization unit to 125,000 doses a day from about 40,000.
Many Indians began to question the government’s highly publicized vaccine export campaign, when only a fraction of the country’s 1.35 billion people were inoculated.
The government has announced plans to inoculate 300 million people, or a fifth of the population, by August. However, only 42 million have been vaccinated so far, while the world’s largest vaccine manufacturer has donated or exported nearly 60 million doses.
Reporting by Aditi Shah; edited by Jane Wardell