India on late Monday evening went past the 700,000-mark in terms of the Novel Coronavirus (Covid-19) cases as 3,827 fresh infections were reported, taking the total number of cases in the country to 7,01,240. Also, with 425 people succumbing to the lethal virus in the last 24 hours, the country was second in the daily number of worldwide deaths -- behind Brazil that recorded 602 fatalities, officials said.

The US, the worst coronavirus-affected country with over 2.9 million cases, was third on the list of fatalities with 271 deaths. According to the official data, India has reported 19,693 Covid-19-related deaths, compared to Brazil's 64,867, and 1,29,947 by the US.

The rate of fatality in India -- the number of deaths as a percentage against the total positive cases -- was 2.8 percent on Monday which was slightly lower compared to 3 percent a week ago and 3.2 per cent two weeks ago.

The fatality rate worldwide stands at 4.7 percent. The US has a fatality rate of 4.5 percent while it is 4.1 percent in Brazil.

Currently, the US, Brazil and India are the top-three countries severely impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Despite the low fatality rate in India, there has been a worrying spike in the number of new cases in the country over the past weeks. India registered one lakh more cases -- from six to seven lakh, in just four days, with over 20,000 new Covid-19 positive cases reported daily since July 3.  (IANS)