India logs highest daily Covid spike with 1,84,372 new cases
NEW DELHI: The number of new Coronavirus cases in India hit a record daily high with 1,84,372 infections pushing the total tally of cases to 1,38,73,825, while the active cases surpassed the 13-lakh mark, according to the Union Health ministry data updated on Wednesday.
The death toll increased to 1,72,085 with 1,027 new fatalities, the highest since October 18, 2020 the data updated at 8 am showed.
Registering a steady increase for the 35th day in a row, the active cases have increased to 13,65,704, comprising 9.84 per cent of the total infections, while the national COVID-19 recovery rate has dropped to 88.92 per cent.
The active caseload was at its lowest at 1,35,926 on February 12 and it was at its highest at 10,17,754 on September 18, 2020.
The number of people who have recuperated from the disease surged to 1,23,36,036, while the case fatality rate has further dropped to 1.24 per cent, the data stated.
According to the ICMR, 26,06,18,866 samples have been tested up to April 13 with 14,11,758 samples being tested on Tuesday.
With at least 5,892 fresh cases across Bengal on Wednesday, the state witnessed its highest single-day surge since the pandemic broke out. In another development, around 3 lakh doses of Covishield arrived in the state on Wednesday afternoon while 2 lakh doses of Covaxin are expected to arrive later in the evening. On April 12, around 3 lakh doses of Covishield came to the city.
The total tally of infected people reached 6,30,116 on Wednesday. The number of active Covid cases, however, stands at 32,621. Around 5,87,037 patients have already been released from the hospitals out of which 2,297 patients have been discharged in the past 24 hours. The Covid recovery rate on Wednesday stood at 93.16 percent. The percentage of positive cases out of the sample tested stands at 6.54.
A total of 1,72,085 deaths have been reported so far in the country including 58,526 from Maharashtra, 13,008 from Karnataka, 12,945 from Tamil Nadu, 11,436 from Delhi, 10,434 from West Bengal, 9,309 from Uttar Pradesh, 7,609 from Punjab and 7,321 from Andhra Pradesh.
Meanwhile, with Denmark becoming the first country in the European Union to drop AstraZeneca's vaccine from its Covid-19 inoculation programme, the claims of government over the safety of Indian version of AstraZeneca vaccine — Covishield — has also come under the ‘scanner'.
According to other beneficiaries who have been administered Covishield vaccine during the nationwide inoculation programme, the side effects of the vaccine vary from person to person. Some of them have complained of high fever after taking the vaccine while there are other beneficiaries who have not yet experienced any post-vaccination side effects.
India on Wednesday vaccinated a total of 31,39,063 eligible beneficiaries till 8 pm. As per the Health ministry's provisional report, the cumulative number of vaccine doses administered in the country stands at 11,43,18,455 and three states have administered more than one crore doses on the 89th day of the vaccination drive that was commenced on January 16. There were 69,974 COVID Vaccination Centres (CVCs) operational on the fourth day of ‘Tika Utsav'.