An unprecedented 49 per cent believe that the COVID-19 threat is hyperbolised, even as cases surge in India. As per the IANS-CVoter COVID-19 Tracker with a sample size of 1,723, 49.3 per cent of people believe that the threat from the pathogen is exaggerated, while 41.2 per cent refute it. The poll was conducted on respondents from across the country between March 16 and July 22. Even though, the graph of people who believed that the situation was more overstated than the reality was at its peak at the start of the lockdown, it crashed down on May 9, and shot up again on and after June 8. A record single-day jump of 49,310 new coronavirus patients registered in the last 24 hours has taken India's COVID-19 tally to 12,87,945 cases. In the last 24 hours, the highest number of new cases were reported from Maharashtra (9,895), Andhra Pradesh (7,998), Tamil Nadu (6,472), Karnataka (5,030) & Uttar Pradesh (2,516). In the last 24 hours, highest number of COVID-19-linked deaths were reported from Maharashtra (298), Karnataka (97), Tamil Nadu (88), Andhra Pradesh (61) and West Bengal (34). India is at the third spot in the list of most affected countries after the United States and Brazil.