India reports highest single day COVID-19 spike in 24 hours this year

India, on Thursday, reported its highest single day spike in 2021 in new COVID-19 cases, with 35,871 cases and 172 deaths in the last 24 hours, as per data released by the Health Ministry.

The Ministry added that the total number of cases with U.K., South Africa and Brazil variants of the COVID-19 virus in the country as on date stands at 400 cases.

The country has so far reported a total of 1,14,74,605 cases, and a death toll of 1,59,216. It has an active case load of 2,52,364 cases. The top 10 districts in India with active cases include Pune (32,359), Nagpur (21,496), Mumbai (15,410), Thane (14,644), Nashik (9,821), Aurangabad (9,621), Bengaluru-Urban (7,344), and Jalgaon (4,610).

India’s tests per day per million population are more than 140 and the daily positivity rate is 3.37% as of today, said the release.

Five States of Maharashtra, Punjab, Karnataka, Gujarat and Tamil Nadu continue to report a surge in the COVID-19 daily new cases, and 79.54% of the new 35,871 cases are from these five States.

“Maharashtra has reported the highest daily new cases at 16,620 (accounting for 63.21% of the daily new cases). It is followed by Kerala with 1,792 while Punjab reported 1,492 new cases,” said the Ministry.

It added that a rising trajectory of daily new cases is visible in eight States — Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Punjab, Madhya Pradesh, Delhi, Gujarat, Karnataka and Haryana, while Kerala has been reporting a consistently declining trend over the last one month.

India has reported 17,741 recoveries in the past 24 hours, with cumulative recoveries at 1,10,63,025 today. The national recovery rate is 96.41%.

India has also reported 172 deaths in the last 24 hours, with five States accounting for 84.88% of the new deaths. Maharashtra saw the maximum casualties (84). Punjab follows with 35 daily deaths, and Kerala reported 13 deaths in the last 24 hours.

“The Case Fatality Rate remains below 1.5% (1.39%) and is continuously declining. Eighteen States/UTs have not reported any COVID19 deaths in the last 24 hours. These include Rajasthan, Assam, Chandigarh, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Odisha, Jharkhand, Puducherry, Lakshadweep, Sikkim, Ladakh (UT) and Manipur,” said the release.