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Riding on Maha surge, India registers 23k new Covid cases

The number of Covid-19 cases in India is on the rise as the country recorded more than 23,000 new cases. Maharashtra, which is battling a massive coronavirus surge, reported 15,817 cases on Friday. This is the state’s highest single-day tally this year. 56 people also died of the illness in the last 24 hours, the […]

The number of Covid-19 cases in India is on the rise as the country recorded more than 23,000 new cases. Maharashtra, which is battling a massive coronavirus surge, reported 15,817 cases on Friday. This is the state’s highest single-day tally this year. 56 people also died of the illness in the last 24 hours, the state government said in a statement.

Maharashtra has the highest number of active cases in the country. As on Friday, active cases stood at 1,10,485—an increment of over 4,000 over Thursday. 

11,344 patients were also discharged on Friday, taking the total recoveries to 21,17,744, which is 92.79 percent of total cases reported.

The Centre is “very worried” about the upsurge in coronavirus cases in Maharashtra, said NITI Aayog member Dr V.K. Paul, adding the virus cannot be taken for granted if the country has to remain Covid-free. The remark comes after the Maharashtra government announced a week-long lockdown, from March 15 to March 21, in Nagpur.

The Union Health Ministry said that eight of the 10 cities with the highest number of active cases belong to Maharashtra, namely, Pune, Nagpur, Thane, Mumbai, Amravati, Jalgaon, Nashik and Aurangabad.

Furthermore, the Punjab government imposed night curfew in four more districts on Friday and closed all schools amid a rise in cases in the state, officials said. In total, the night curfew has been imposed in eight districts—Ludhiana, Patiala, Mohali, Fatehgarh Sahib, Jalandhar, Nawanshahr, Kapurthala and Hoshiarpur — from 11 pm to 5 am each day.

Meanwhile, Uttarakhand CM Tirath Singh Rawat, in his first cabinet meeting on Friday, decided to withdraw all cases registered in connection with COVID-19 violations.

The number of fresh cases reported daily in Uttar Pradesh has been showing an upward trend in the last 10 days with 187 new instances of the infection reported in a day, according to official data on Friday. Two fresh COVID-19 fatalities took the death toll in the state to 8,743, he said. Ten days ago, daily cases were in two-digits. Now it is seeing an upward trend, Additional Chief Secretary, Health, Amit Mohan Prasad said. 

On Friday, Tamil Nadu reported 670 new cases, 527 recoveries and 6 deaths.

Kerala added 1,780 fresh Covid-19 cases on the same day pushing the caseload to 10,87,792, while 3,377 people were cured of the infection, the state government said. With 14 more fatalities being recorded, the toll mounted to 4,369. Active cases touched 32,174 and recoveries increased to 10,50,603, state health minister K.K. Shailaja said in a press release.

Meanwhile, Jammu and Kashmir recorded 73 fresh coronavirus cases on Friday, taking the infection tally to 1,27,436, while the death toll reached 1,971 with two more fatalities, officials said. Of the fresh cases, 14 were from the Jammu division and 59 from the Kashmir division.

In Goa, as many as 82 people tested positive for the coronavirus on Friday, raising the tally of infections to 55,758, an official from the health department said. Apart from this, at least 40 patients were discharged from various treatment facilities, while one died of the infection during the day, the official said. This has taken the toll to 804 and the count of recoveries has reached 54,209, he stated. The coastal state is now left with 745 active cases.

Odisha’s Covid-19 tally surged to 3,38,056 on Friday as 64 more people tested positive for the infection, while one fresh fatality pushed the state’s coronavirus death toll to 1,918, said a health official. 37 new cases were reported in quarantine centres, while 27 fresh infections were detected during contact tracing.

Andhra Pradesh reported 210 fresh cases of Covid on Friday, the highest after two months, pushing the gross up to 8,91,388. In the 24-hour period ending at 9 am on Friday, 140 patients recovered and one succumbed to the virus in the state, the latest bulletin said. The number of active cases rose to 1,227 after a total of 8,82,981 recoveries and 7,180 deaths, it further said.

Overall in India, a total of 23,285 new infections were registered during the day, while the death count increased to 1,58,306 with 117 daily new fatalities, according to data updated at 8 am on Friday. 

The Covid-19 active caseload is 1,97,237 which now comprises 1.74 percent of the total infections. The recovery rate has increased to 96.86 percent.

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