NEW DELHI: For the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic hit India early last year, the country's death toll crossed a record 4,000 mark even as cases surged by more than 400,000 for the third consecutive day to 4,01,078 taking the country’s death toll to 2,38,270.

According to the Union health ministry, in the past 24 hours, the new spike of just over 4 lakh COVID-19 cases has taken the COVID-19 caseload in India to 2,18,92,676. There are now 37,23,446 active cases in the country, comprising 17.01 per cent of the total infections while the national COVID-19 recovery rate stands at 81.90 per cent.

With this India has become only the third country in the world after the United States and Brazil to record more than 4,000 covid deaths in a day.

In terms of fatalities, Maharashtra is the worst-hit state which saw the highest number of deaths in the past 24 hours at 898, followed by Karnataka where 592 deaths were registered while Uttar Pradesh 372 deaths were registered and in Delhi 341 people died due to the infection.

Many states in the country have announced several measures like lockdowns and curfews to break the chain of transmission however there is raging debate if a nationwide lockdown like which was done last year is required. 

After Maharashtra, Gujarat, Delhi, West Bengal, Odisha and other states, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Goa and Manipur are the latest ones to announce lockdown and other measures. Karnataka announced a two-week lockdown from Monday till May 24. Tamil Nadu has also announced a two-week curfew while in Manipur, curfew will be enforced till May 17.