India Smashes Global Record For Most New COVID-19 Cases Reported In A Day: Live Updates

Summary:

• NY reports new record low positivity
• India breaks global record for most new cases in a day
• Russia cases top 980k
• Merkel warns Germans outbreak will get worse
• India suffers biggest jump in new cases
• Indonesia suffers 2nd straight record jump
• Japan announces plan to stockpile vaccine as Abe resigns
• South Korea extends social distancing restrictions
• China reports 9 new imported cases, 12th day with no domestic infections

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Update (1140ET): Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Thursday that New York State saw a positivity rate of just 0.65% over the past day, its lowest level yet.

The state has been seeing its testing positivity rate sink further into record low territory over the past two weeks. Cuomo recently said NY would reject new testing guidance saying that states don’t need to test so many people who come into contact with the newly infected. Of course, lowering the number of tests run daily might cause the positivity rate to shoot back up, which wouldn’t be great for Cuomo, politically speaking.

“Fighting COVID-19 requires enormous bravery and discipline from New Yorkers and I thank them for today’s new record-low infection rate. This is evidence that what each of us does to slow the spread – wearing masks, socially distancing and washing hands – makes a real difference,” Cuomo says in the statement.

Eight million coronavirus tests have been run by labs in the state since the outbreak began, and the positivity rate has been under 1% every day for the past 3 weeks.

“Yesterday’s data also shows that we aren’t necessarily finding more positives with more testing, which is a good new development. We aren’t out of the woods yet, so keep it up, be safe and stay New York Tough,” Cuomo said.

There have been at least 25,312 coronavirus-related deaths across New York since the start of the pandemic. Cuomo’s touting of the positivity rate comes as the DoJ investigates whether he and several of his colleagues are responsible for a flurry of nursing home deaths.

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Update (1125ET): As we wait to see if the surge seen in the Midwest over the past week continued on Friday, India has officially topped the United States’ record of coronavirus cases reported in a 24-hour period for two days in a row.

India confirmed 85,687 new cases on Aug. 26 and 77,266 new cases on Aug. 27, both surpassing the US’s highest number of new cases, which was reported on July 16, when the US reported 77,255 new cases, per JHU data.

One reason for the surge is that India has been focusing on ramping up testing. As of Friday, India has conducted more than 39 million tests, according to the Indian Council of Medical Research.

The Union Health Ministry on Thursday urged states to further ramp up testing, ensuring a minimum of 140 tests per million in all districts and to make public information on the availability of beds, ambulances, and more, so vulnerable patients can receive timely care, according to a statement from India’s press information bureau.

The total number of cases of coronavirus in the country stand at 3,387,500 with 61,529 deaths and 2,583,948 recoveries as of Friday, according to the Indian Ministry of Health.

India has recorded nearly half of its 3.5 million cases during the month of August.

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As we reported last night, the US surpassed 180,000 coronavirus-related deaths last night, by far the largest death toll in the world. Only one other country – Brazil – has a death toll in the six-figure territory. But on Friday morning, Russia’s coronavirus cases surpassed 980,000 after the country reported 4,829 new cases over the past day, cementing its status as the fourth-largest outbreak in the world.

Russia’s coronavirus taskforce added 110 deaths to the official death toll, bringing its total to 16,914, a total that some experts claim has been deliberately suppressed by the government.

Circling back to the US, the country has added 931 new coronavirus deaths in the past 24 hours, bringing the country’s total death toll to 180,527, along with an additional 42,859 new confirmed cases, bringing its overall caseload to 5,860,397.

In Japan, the big news overnight was that PM Shinzo Abe announced his plans to resign as soon as his party, the Liberal Democrats, elects a new leader. Abe leaves Japan with a parting gift: an initiative to stockpile vaccine doses ahead of next summer’s Olympics. Japan is aiming to secure COVID-19 vaccinations for all citizens by the first half of 2021, said Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who announced the measures to beef up Japan’s vaccine stockpiles ahead of the upcoming flu season, even as he heads for the exits.

In other vaccine, Moderna shared some more procedural news about its clinical trials, while the European Commission said it had signed a contract with British drugmaker AstraZeneca, which is working with Oxford on a vaccine candidate, for the supply of at least 300 million doses of its as-yet-unproven vaccine. It is the first contract signed by the EU with a vaccine maker, and follows the US, UK and Japan in the race to secure supplies of a vaccine.

India reported yet another single-day record jump of 77,266 cases, pushing the country’s total to 3.39 million with the death toll rising to 61,529, up 1,057 since Thursday morning. With the COVID situation still pretty dire, Indian Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan affirmed Friday that the country is considering manufacturing and testing Russia’s Gameleya Institute-developed vaccine, known as “Sputnik 5”.

“As far as Sputnik V vaccine is concerned, both the countries are in communication,” Indian Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan told reporters this week when asked whether New Delhi had been formally approached by Moscow over manufacturing the vaccine.

“Some initial information has been shared [with India, and] some detailed information is awaited,” he said, without providing further details, according to Nikkei.

India has plenty of capacity for manufacturing generic drugs and vaccines, plus a massive population upon which to test the vaccine, which is probably why Russia is seek such a partnership.

Globally, cases continued to slow with just under a quarter million reported yesterday.

South Korea extended the current Phase 2 social distancing measures in the Seoul area for at least another week, though the government stopped short of a threatened return to “Phase 3”. South Korea confirmed 371 cases on Friday, down from 441 a day ago, bringing the country’s total to 19,077 with 316 deaths.

China reported nine new cases on Friday, all of them imported, compared with eight a day earlier. It marked the 12th straight day with no domestic transmission.

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