Nearly 25,000 virus cases in India in record daily jump

Tally of infections surges beyond 673,000 in fourth worst-hit country globally

NEW DELHI:

With 24,850 new cases and 613 deaths in the last 24 hours, India Sunday saw its biggest surge in Covid-19 cases.

The country’s tally of infections rose to 673,165 as the death toll zoomed to 19,268, according to the Health Ministry data.

The total number of cases in the country includes 244,814 active cases and 409,083 cured/discharged/migrated.

With the new recoveries, the recovery rate in India has risen to 60.77% from Friday’s 60.7%.

This is the ninth consecutive day when cases have risen by over 18,000.

India is now only 800 cases behind Russia, the third worst-hit country globally.

The worst-hit western state of Maharashtra set a new record on Saturday, with the biggest jump of 7,074 new coronavirus cases in a single day for the first time since the global coronavirus outbreak, taking the total case count to 200,064.

With 295 new deaths, the death toll in the state rose to 8,671, the official figures showed.

Delhi is the third worst-affected state in the country with 2,505 fresh cases taking its total tally to 97,000. The death toll has mounted to 3,004 with 55 new fatalities.

The national capital has shown a decline in Covid-19 positivity rate to 10.58% from earlier 37%. The recovery rate has risen to 70%.

“Less and less people in Delhi are now requiring hospitalisation, more and more people are getting cured at home. While there were around 2,300 new patients daily last week, the number of patients in hospital has gone down from 6,200 to 5,300. Today, 9,900 corona beds are free,” tweeted Arvind Kejriwal, Delhi chief minister.

With a single-day all-time high of 4,280 fresh coronavirus cases, the second worst-hit southern state of Tamil Nadu’s tally reached 107,001.

After 17 days of intense lockdown, the state eased restrictions in some cities on Saturday.

The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) said that 9,789,066 samples were tested for Covid-19 in the country till Saturday, of these 248,934 were tested yesterday.

The ICMR confirmed that it is fast-tracking efforts to develop the COVAXIN vaccine in collaboration with the Bharat Biotech company, thus the country's first made-in-India coronavirus vaccine will be launched no later than August 15, India’s Independence Day.