NEW DELHI: India crossed 2 million mark in the case of COVID-19 on Thursday. The country is currently second in the world in terms of coronavirus cases, and is only behind Brazil and the US. India, which is also the second most populated country in the world, is also seeing a significant rise in the number of coronavirus cases. Brazil has over 2.8 million cases and the US has close to 5 million cases. India had over 1.5 million cases by July 28th. A total of 5,00,000 cases have been added to the total within 9 days, with an average of 50,000 fresh cases reported per day.

On Thursday, India reported 62,482 coronavirus cases and the total number of cases crossed 20,23,821. Globally, there are more than 18 million coronavirus cases and a total of 7 lakh people died due to COVID-19.

The five states Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, and Uttar Pradesh reported the highest number of coronavirus. Maharashtra is the worst-hit state by coronavirus. The state has more than 4.6 lakh cases.

India reported the first coronavirus case on 30 January. With each passing day, the number of coronavirus cases are increasing and by July 16th, the coronavirus case count crossed 1 million mark and within three weeks, the number doubled to 2 million.

Several top political leaders including Union Home Secretary Amit Shah, Karnataka Chief Minister BS Yeddyurappa have tested positive for coronavirus in the last week. Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Chouhan recovered from coronavirus infection and was discharged from the hospital. He was in the hospital for 11 days.

Amir Ullah Khan, Senior Research Fellow a Rajiv Gandhi institute for Contemporary Studies (RGICS), a policy think tank said that, "The spread of the virus in rural areas is alarming. Until June, the virus was primarily found in urban areas. With the pandemic heading to smaller cities and towns, with no sophisticated healthcare services, the situation is grim."