India on Thursday recorded 16,922 new cases of Covid-19 in the last 24 hours – highest so far- pushing the nationwide tally to 4,73,105.
According to Union health ministry’s update at 8 am, the number of active cases in the country are 1,86,514. The country also saw 418 deaths in the last 24 hours, which pushed its death toll to 14,894.
The country had recorded the highest single-day jump of nearly 16,000 Covid-19 cases on Wednesday.
Delhi, which already is the second worst hit state in terms of coronavirus caseload and fatalities, overtook Mumbai after the number of cases soared by 3,788 to touch 70,390. Mumbai has so far recorded 69,625 cases, according to official figures.
As part of the Delhi government’s revised Covid-19 response plan, a house to house screening will be completed by June 30 in containment zones and for the rest of the city by July 6 in what is billed as a mammoth exercise.
In all, 12 states now account for more than 10,000 coronavirus cases as they continued to report record daily spikes that were mainly attributed to augmented testing.
News agency PTI reported health ministry officials as saying on Wednesday that of the over 4.4 lakh Covid-19 cases reported in the country, only 15.34 per cent required ICU care. It also said that only 4.16 per cent of patients were put on ventilators.
The doubling time of coronavirus infection cases has improved from 17.4 days on June 12 to 19.7 days in the last three days, a health ministry official was quoted by PTI.
The ministry also said that daily testing of samples of blood and throat and nose swabs crossed two lakh for the first time since the outbreak began. The recovery rate has improved for 56.71 per cent, it further said.
Meanwhile, Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), the apex health research body in the country, validated 1,000th testing laboratory on Wednesday, ramping up the capacity for detection of Covid-19 in the country.
The country has recorded 2,65,648 infections from June 1 till June 24 with Maharashtra, Delhi, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh remaining the top five contributors to the rising tally.
