Daily death toll tops 3.7 thousand for first time

NEW DELHI, May 2
India reported its highest single-day Covid death toll on Saturday, with more than 3,700 people succumbing to the virus in the last 24 hours. The day's case count dropped marginally from Friday's record tally of over 4 lakh to 3.92 lakh.
As many as 3,728 fatalities were reported on Saturday. The previous highest toll was 3,596 recorded on Wednesday. This was the third time this week that daily fatalities had crossed 3,500 in India.
As many as 14 States recorded 100-plus deaths on Saturday, the highest so far. These included two smaller States battling very high mortalities. Uttarakhand recorded 107 deaths, a day after reporting 122 fatalities. In Jharkhand, the toll on Saturday was 159, close to the State's all-time high count of 160 earlier in the week.
Meanwhile, Bengal recorded over 100 deaths for the first time. The toll in the State was 103 on Saturday.
Maharashtra again reported the highest deaths at 802, followed by 412 in Delhi. This was the National capital's highest single-day toll. Uttar Pradesh reported 303 deaths, a slight drop from Friday's count (332), followed by Karnataka (271), Chhattisgarh (282) and Gujarat (172).
After daily cases hit an unprecedented 4.02 lakh on Friday, there was a slight drop in numbers on Saturday as several States reported plateauing of cases, at least for now. Despite that, eight States and UTs reported their highest single-day spurt in infections, led by Tamil Nadu, which reported 19,588 new cases. Infections also surged to all-time highs in Andhra Pradesh (19,412), Rajasthan (17,652), Bengal (17,512), Odisha (10,413), Punjab (7,041), J&K (3,832) and Puducherry (1,379).
In Maharashtra, daily Covid detections have stabilised at around 63,000 cases although fatalities continued to remain high. The State reported 63,282 fresh cases on Saturday, with Mumbai recording 3,897 infections and 90 deaths.
 Mumbai civic body officials said an analysis of deaths during the second Covid wave has revealed that although the prevalence of cases is not the highest in the under-40 age- group, there is an increased mortality in this age group.
Karnataka continued to record the second highest count of new cases, with 40,990 on Saturday. However, Bengaluru's numbers dropped to 19,353 from over 26,000 reported on the previous day. Times of India