Even as the nationwide lockdown continues to be imposed, India has officially surpassed Russia in the total number of COVID-19 cases to become the third worst affected country in the world following the USA and Brazil.

India recordeded 24,248 positive cases in the last 24 hours taking the tally to 697,413, according to the Health Ministry. As of Monday, the USA and Brazil had reported 2.8 million and 1.6 million cases, respectively, according to the Johns Hopkins Institute. India's record single-day surge pushed the total number of cases to 6,73,165 and the death toll to 19,268 on Sunday. With a steady rise, the number of recoveries stands at 4,09,082 in the country. According to the health ministry, "The number of recovered cases exceeded that of the active cases by 1,64,268 as of Sunday. Thus, 60.77 per cent of the patients have recovered so far." According to the Tamil Nadu state health department, TN became the second state in India to confirm over 1 lakh COVID-19 cases. With 4150 fresh COVID-19 cases in the last 24 hours, Tamil Nadu's total number of confirmed coronavirus patients surged to 1,11,151. Meanwhile, the Delhi government also fears that the national capital, which is home to 25 million people, could record more than half a million cases by the end of the month. Epidemiologists have reportedly warned that India's peak could still be weeks or months away.

Two vaccine candidates in India, COVAXIN and ZyCov-D, have been approved for phase I and phase II human trials so far. "Six Indian companies are working on a COVID-19 vaccine. Along with two Indian vaccines, COVAXIN and ZyCov-D, world over 11 out of 140 vaccine candidates are in human trials," the Ministry of Science and Technology said.