India reports 68,020 COVID-19 cases in last 24 hours, global caseload tops 127 million

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New Delhi: The COVID-19 count reached 12,039,644 in India on Monday (March 29) with 68,020 new cases in the last 24 hours, according to Union health ministry data.

On Monday, the country recorded 291 fresh fatalities as well, taking the total death toll to 161,843. Moreover, the health ministry data revealed that 11,355,993 patients have so far been discharged.

The most shocking aspect is that the active cases crossed the half a million mark on Monday, with 178,000 new active cases added to the tally in just the past week.

The health ministry notification adds that eight states and union territories in India have been leading the surge in COVID-19 cases in the country.

The overall number of global COVID-19 cases has surpassed 127 million, while the deaths have surged to more than 2.78 million, according to Johns Hopkins University.

In its latest update on Monday (March 29) morning, the University's Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) revealed that the current global caseload and death toll stood at 127,092,284 and 2,782,944, respectively.

The US is the worst-hit country with the world’s highest number of cases and deaths at 30,262,037 and 549,335, respectively, according to the CSSE.

Brazil follows in the second place with 12,534,688 cases and 312,206 fatalities.

The other countries with more than 2 million confirmed coronavirus cases are India (11,971,624), France (4,606,185), Russia (4,469,327), the UK (4,347,013), Italy (3,532,057), Spain (3,255,324), Turkey (3,208,173), Germany (2,784,652), Colombia (2,382,730), Argentina (2,308,597), Poland (2,250,991) and Mexico (2,224,767), the CSSE figures showed.

In terms of deaths, Mexico comes in the third place with 201,429 fatalities.

Nations with a death toll of over 50,000 are India (161,552), the UK (126,834), Italy (107,933), Russia (96,123), France (94,754), Germany (75,927), Spain (75,010), Colombia (62,955), Iran (62,397), Argentina (55,449), South Africa (52,663), Poland (51,884) and Peru (51,238).