Corona Update: India records highest single day spike; approaches 24 lakh mark

New Delhi: India’s tally of coronavirus approaches 24 lakh mark on Thursday after nearly 67,000 fresh cases were registered in the last 24 hours. The death toll also increased from 46,091 to 47,033, according to latest data released by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.

India on Thursday registered the highest single-day spike of 66,999 cases and reported 942 deaths in the last 24 hours. The country’s coronavirus tally touched 23,96,638 including 6,53,622 active cases.

Health Ministry data showed that 8,85,577 people who had been infected with the virus have recovered so far. With this, the cumulative recovery rate of India rose to 63.9 percent.

Of the states which has more than 1 lakh cases, Maharashtra accounts for the highest number of cases with 26.4% of the total tally with 5,48,313, followed by Tamil Nadu(3,14,520), Andra Pradesh(2,54,146), Karnataka(1,96,494), Delhi(1,48,504), Uttar Pradesh(1,36,238) and West Bengal(1,04,326).

In the last 24 hrs, 8,30,391 samples were tested. For the first time, Govt labs set a new record of testing 6,62,153 samples. Private labs also scaled a new high of over 1,50,000 samples tested in a single day, said health ministry. So far, ICMR( Indian council of medical research) has conducted test over 2,68,45,688 samples.

The total number of samples tested up to August 12 is , of which were yesterday, said Indian Council of Medical Research.

Meanwhile, on Wednesday, In a first, the National Expert Group held a meeting on vaccine administration for Covid-19 held detailed deliberations on modifying existing technology platforms to track potential vaccines from procurement to last-mile delivery.

Globally, over 20 million (20,532,835) people have been infected with the novel coronavirus, including 747,845 deaths. The United States continues to remain the worst affected followed by Brazil and India.

Amid race for an effective vaccine worldwide, Russia has approved a coronavirus vaccine for public use without the final phase of human trials.