Surge in daily COVID-19 cases, India records over 17,000 new infections

New Delhi: The daily new cases of COVID-19 in India were recorded above 17,000 after a little over a month taking the total tally of cases to 1,11,56,923, while the recoveries surged to 1,08,26,075, according to the Union Health Ministry data updated on Thursday.

A total of 17,407 infections were reported in a day. The death toll increased to 1,57,435 with 89 daily new fatalities, the data updated at 8 am showed.

On January 29,18,855 new infections were recorded in a span of 24 hours.

Maharashtra, Kerala, Punjab, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat and Karnataka continue to report a surge in daily new COVID-19 cases, accounting for 85.51 per cent of fresh cases.

Maharashtra has reported the highest daily new cases at 9,855. This is the highest number recorded in the state since October 18 when 10,259 new cases were reported.

It is followed by Kerala with 2,765 while Punjab reported 772 new cases. The total number of cases with UK, South Africa and Brazil variants of SARS-CoV-2 in the country as on date has reached 242, the ministry said.

India's total COVID-19 active caseload has reached 1,73,413 comprising1.55 per cent of India's total cases.

The number of people who have recuperated from the disease surged to 1,08,26,075 which translates to a national COVID-19 recovery rate of 97.03 per cent, while the case fatality rate stands at 1.41 per cent.

India's COVID-19 tally had crossed 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, 21,91,78,908 samples have been tested up to March 3 with 7,75,631 samples being tested on Wednesday.

The 89 new fatalities include 42 from Maharashtra, 15 from Kerala and 12 from Punjab.

A total of 1,57,435 deaths have been reported so far in the country including 52,280 from Maharashtra followed by 12,504 from Tamil Nadu, 12,346 from Karnataka, 10,914 from Delhi, 10,272 from West Bengal, 8,728 from Uttar Pradesh and 7,170 from Andhra Pradesh.

Twenty-three states and UTs have not reported any COVID-19 deaths in the last 24 hours. These are Madhya Pradesh, Haryana, Rajasthan, Jammu and Kashmir, Odisha, Uttar Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Goa, Uttarakhand, Jharkhand, Puducherry, Assam, Lakshadweep, Nagaland, Sikkim, Ladakh, Tripura, Andaman Nicobar Islands, Manipur, Mizoram, Meghalaya, Daman and Diu and Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Arunachal Pradesh.

The health ministry stressed that more than 70 per cent of the deaths occurred due to comorbidities.

More than 1.66 crore vaccine doses have been administered through 3,23,064 sessions, as per the provisional report till Thursday 7 am.

These include 67,90,808 health care workers (HCWs 1st dose), 28,72,725 HCWs (2nd dose), 58,03,856 front line workers (FLWs 1stdose) and 4,202 FLWs (2nd Dose), 1,43,759 beneficiaries aged more than 45 years with specific co-morbidities (1st dose) and 10,00,698 beneficiaries aged more than 60 years.

As on day-47 of the vaccination drive (March 3), nearly 10 lakh vaccine doses were given. Of these, 8,31,590 beneficiaries were vaccinated across 10,849 sessions for 1st dose (HCWs and FLWs) and 1,62,862 HCWs and FLWs received 2nd dose of vaccine.

"Our figures are being reconciled with the Indian Council of Medical Research," the ministry said on its website, adding that state-wise distribution of figures is subject to further verification and reconciliation.