India becomes the third country in the world to record 5 lakh deaths

India becomes the third country in the world record of 5 lakh COVID-19 deaths on Thursday, after the US and Brazil.
The country took 217 days to reach 5 lakh deaths from 4 lakh recorded on July 1 last year, the longest time is taken to record 1 lakh fatalities. India was hit by a devastating second wave in April-May last year.

The country’s death toll had crossed three lakh-mark on May 23 and two lakh-mark on April 27. The death toll went past one lakh on October 2, 2020. With over 9.2 lakh deaths, the US has the highest number of fatalities due to the infection followed by Brazil with over 6.3 lakh, according to the Worldometers, which has been compiling global COVID-19 data. India presently is facing a third wave of Covid driven by the highly transmissible Omicron variant. However, according to experts, cases are mostly mild in comparison to the second wave.