With 81,466 new coronavirus cases, India has seen another huge daily surge on Thursday, taking the total tally of the country to 1.23 crore. The last one-lakh cases were reported in just four days. The country saw 469 daily new fatalities, the highest since December 6, the data updated at 8 am showed. With this, the number of active cases has reached 6,14,696, comprising 5 per cent of the total infections, while the recovery rate has further dropped to 93.67 per cent. The number of people who have recovered from the infection surged to 11525039. The case fatality rate stood at 1.33 per cent, the data stated.
Today’s single daily Covid-19 count is the highest reported in six months i.e, since October 2, 2020, 81,484 new infections were recorded. Till now, as many as 1,23,03,131 people have been infected with the coronavirus in India since the first cases were reported in India, last year. Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh, Karnataka, Punjab, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh continue to show a massive rise in daily new cases, accounting for 84.61 per cent of the new cases reported in a span of 24 hours, the Health Ministry said.
India's COVID-19 tally had passed the 20-lakh mark on August 7, 30 lakh on August 23, 40 lakh on September 5, and 50 lakh on September 16. It went past 60 lakh on September 28, 70 lakh on October 11, crossed 80 lakh on October 29, 90 lakh on November 20, and surpassed the one-crore mark on December 19.
According to the ICMR, 24,59,12,587 samples have been tested up to April 1, and 11,13,966 samples were tested on Thursday.
Maharashtra has been witnessing a steady rise in covid cases and the state has been taking steps like enforcing safety guidelines more strictly and has also reduced the rates of coronavirus RT-PCR tests to ₹ 500 from ₹ 1,000. The charges for rapid antigen tests were also brought down. On Thursday, Mumbai reported 8,646 cases of COVID-19 infection, making it the highest one-day spike since the pandemic, with 18 deaths reported in the last 24 hours.
Many states have decided to close schools, restrictions on public gatherings and other virus-fighting measures, including lockdown in their worst-hit districts, worrying about the rise in coronavirus cases.
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The Covid surge in the country is due to a new strain and the situation is exactly like the one in the UK when the virus underwent a mutation around Christmas, Dr Randeep Guleria, chief of Delhi's All India Institute of Medical Sciences.
Amid the troubling increase in the number of cases, the government has decided to operationalise both public and private sector vaccination centres throughout the month of April, including on gazetted holidays.