India reports 53,476 new covid-19 infections in a day, highest since October 2020

The coronavirus situation in India continues to get worrisome as country recorded 53,476 new COVID-19 cases, 26,490 recoveries, and 251 deaths in the last 24 hours.

This is the highest single day rise so far this year, pushing the nationwide COVID-19 tally of cases to 1,17,87,534, according to the Union Health Ministry data updated on Thursday.

Apart from the new infections, 26,490 recoveries were reported, taking the total recoveries to 1.12 crore.

The Health Ministry also announced as many as 251 virus-related deaths in the last 24 hours, which raised the toll to 1.60 lakh.

The number of people who have recuperated from the disease surged to 1,12,31,650, while the case fatality rate has further dropped to 1.36 per cent, the data stated.

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, 23,75,03,882 samples have been tested up to March 24 with 10,65,021 samples being tested on Wednesday.

The 251 new fatalities include 95 from Maharashtra, 39  Punjab, 29 from Chhattisgarh, 12 each from Tamil Nadu and Karnataka and 10 from Kerala.

A total of 1,60,692 deaths have been reported so far in the country including 53,684 from Maharashtra, 12,630 from Tamil Nadu, 12,461 from Karnataka, 10,973 from Delhi, 10,312 from West Bengal, 8,769 from Uttar Pradesh and 7,197 from Andhra Pradesh.

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

"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.

(With inputs from agencies)