COVID-19: Death toll rises to 559, positive cases climb to 17,656

Team Udayavani, Apr 20, 2020, 8:53 PM IST

New Delhi: The death toll due to COVID-19 rose to 559 and the number of cases climbed to 17,656 in the country on Monday, registering an increase of 40 deaths and 1,540 cases since Sunday evening, according to the Union health ministry.

The number of active COVID-19 cases stood at 14,255 while 2,841 people have been cured and discharged, and one patient has migrated, the ministry said.

The total number of cases includes 77 foreign nationals.

A total of 40 deaths were reported since Sunday evening. Twelve fatalities were reported from Maharashtra, nine from Gujarat, five from Andhra Pradesh, four from Madhya Pradesh, three each from Rajasthan and Telangana and two each from Delhi and Karnataka.

Of the 559 deaths, the highest number of 223 fatalities were reported from Maharashtra, followed by Madhya Pradesh (74), Gujarat (67), Delhi (45),Telangana (21) and Andhra Pradesh (20).

The death toll reached 17 in Uttar Pradesh while Punjab and Karnataka have registered 16 deaths each.

Tamil Nadu has reported 15 deaths so far, Rajasthan 14 and West Bengal 12.

The disease has claimed five lives in Jammu and Kashmir, while Kerala and Haryana have recorded three COVID-19 deaths each.

Jharkhand and Bihar have reported two deaths each, while Meghalaya, Himachal Pradesh, Odisha and Assam have reported one fatality each, according to the ministry data.

There has been a lag in the Union Health Ministry figures, compared to the number of deaths announced by different states, which officials attribute to procedural delays in assigning the cases to individual states.

According to the health ministry’s data updated in the evening, the highest number of confirmed cases in the country are from Maharashtra (4,203), followed by Delhi (2,003), Gujarat (1,851), Madhya Pradesh (1,485), Rajasthan (1,478) and Tamil Nadu (1,477).

The number of COVID-19 cases has gone up to 1,176 in Uttar Pradesh, 873 in Telangana, 722 in Andhra Pradesh and 402 in Kerala.

The number of cases has risen to 395 in Karnataka, 350 in Jammu and Kashmir, 339 in West Bengal, 233 in Haryana and 219 in Punjab.

Bihar has reported 96 coronavirus cases, while Odisha has 68 such cases.

Forty-four people have been infected with the virus in Uttarakhand, while Jharkhand has 42 cases.

Himachal Pradesh has 39 cases, Chhattisgarh has 36 while Assam has registered 35 infections so far.

Chandigarh has 26 COVID-19 cases, Ladakh 18, while 15 cases have been reported from the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

Meghalaya has reported 11 cases, while Goa and Puducherry have seven COVID-19 patients each.

Manipur and Tripura have two cases each, while Mizoram and Arunachal Pradesh have reported a case each.

“Our figures are being reconciled with the ICMR,” the ministry said on its website.