New Delhi
India on Sunday recorded 25,320 COVID-19 infections, the highest daily rise in 84 days, taking the case tally to 1,13,59,048, as per Union health ministry data.
As many as 26,624 new infections were recorded on December 20. The death toll increased to 1,58,607 on Sunday with 161 new fatalities, the highest in 44 days.
The country’s active caseload rose to 2,10,544 and constitutes 1.85% of the total infections. The recovery rate dropped to 96.75% from 96.82% on Saturday.
The number of people who have recuperated from the disease surged to 1,09,89,897, while the case fatality rate stands at 1.40%, it stated.
According to the Indian Council of Medical Research, 22,67,03,641 samples have been tested till March 13 with 8,64,368 being tested on Saturday. The 161 new fatalities include 88 from Maharashtra, 22 from Punjab and 12 from Kerala.
So far, 1,58,607 deaths have been reported in the country including 52,811 from Maharashtra, 12,543 from Tamil Nadu, 12,387 from Karnataka, 10,939 from Delhi, 10,288 from West Bengal, 8,745 from Uttar Pradesh and 7,182 from Andhra Pradesh.
States like Maharashtra, Kerala, Punjab, Karnataka, Gujarat, TN and MP are showing a steep rise in the daily new Covid-19 cases and have accounted for 87.73% of the new instances of the disease reported in a day. Maharashtra registered the highest daily new cases at 15,602, followed by Kerala with 2,035 and Punjab 1,510 new cases.
N440K variant in Punjab, role behind surge in probe
Amid growing concerns about the unabated resurgence of Covid-19 cases in Punjab, the presence of an Indian variant of SARS-CoV-2 detected in a number of Covid positive samples is causing a new worry. The Institute for Genomics and Integrative Biology (IGIB), Delhi, has found the N440K variant of novel coronavirus in the samples that arrived from Punjab, officials said.
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West Indies cricket legend Sir Vivian Richards and former greats Richie Richardson and Jimmy Adams on Sunday thanked PM Modi for providing coronavirus vaccines to the Caribbean region. In a video message, Richards described India’s assistance as a kind gesture and said the region is looking forward to continued relationship with India. The video message has been posted on Twitter by Indian High Commission in Georgetown, Guyana.
“Thanks India for the wonderful contribution made to our country which is the vaccine. Thank you so much on behalf of Antiguan and Barbudan people,” said Richards. “Thank you very much PM Modi and thanks to the High Commissioner to our region. We also thank all the people of India for such a kind gesture,” he added.
