Andhra Pradesh crosses 1 million Covid cases mark

Amaravati:Riding on the second wave to a new peak, Andhra Pradesh on Friday crossed the one million Covid-19 cases mark as a new record 11,766 were added afresh in a day.

The state became the fifth in the country, behind topper Maharashtra, Kerala, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, to aggregate over 10 lakh coronavirus cases so far.

The states cumulative positives now stands at 10,09,228 from over 1. 58 crore tests, a health department bulletin said. The last lakh cases came in 24 days after the state logged nine lakh on March 30 this year.

It took 158 days for the state to reach nine lakh total cases after it touched the eight-lakh mark on October 23 last year, the longest period since the outbreak of the pandemic.

It took 137 days for AP to log the first one lakh Covid-19 cases from March 12, 2020 when the first case was reported.

The second and the third lakh came in a span of 11 days each and the next three lakh cases came in intervals of 10 days each.

The state went from six to seven lakh cases in 14 days and from seven to eight in the next 22 days, when the first peak hit in August-September last year.

But the pace of the contagions spread slowed considerably after November last year and at one stage in February, the state appeared to be heading towards a nil balance sheet with the overall active caseload dipping to a low of about 300.

On February 15, the state added only 30 fresh cases, the lowest in a day in more than 10 months. But the infection rate started peaking from March as the second wave hit the state, along with other parts of the country.