Coronavirus cases in India rose to 8,447 Sunday, with 909 infections and 34 deaths reported in the last 24 hours. The toll now stands at 274, while 764 people have recovered. In the daily briefing of the Health Ministry, Lav Agarwal, Joint Secretary, said 1,86,906 samples have been tested so far, of which 4.3 per cent were positive. “In last five days, on average 15,747 samples were tested per day and 584 of those were found positive per day,” he said. Agarwal also said 20 per cent of the 8346 positive cases required ICU support.

India is, meanwhile, gearing up for two more weeks of lockdown, with at least six states–Maharashtra, Odisha, Punjab, West Bengal, Karnataka and Telangana– already announcing the extension till April 30 in a bid to stem the spread of the novel coronavirus. A broad consensus that the national lockdown should be extended by at least two weeks till April-end emerged Saturday after an almost four-hour meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and state Chief Ministers.

With over 20,000 casualties, the United States has now overtaken Italy to have the highest death toll from coronavirus in the world. Public health experts have warned that the U.S. death toll could spike to 2,00,000 over the summer if unprecedented stay-at-home orders that have closed businesses and kept most Americans indoors are lifted after 30 days. Italy has the second most reported deaths at 19,468 and Spain is in third place with 16,353. Globally, the number of infections has risen to above 1.77 million, while nearly 1.08 lakh people have died