Spike of 48,513 cases, 768 fatalities push India's tally to 15, 31,669

India recorded 48,513 fresh coronavirus infections and 768 deaths linked to the highly contagious illness in the last 24 hours, which takes the country's tally to 15, 31,669 cases, the Union Health Ministry said this morning.

A total of 9, 88,029 patients in the country have recovered so far and 34,193 have died since the beginning of the pandemic, government data shows. Today's spike in cases comes a day after India crossed 15 lakh cases.

Five states with the highest test positivity rate (TPR) – percentage of tested people turning out to be positive for Covid-19 infection (by cumulative data for tests and cases) – are Maharashtra (19.9%), Telangana (15.73 %), Delhi (13.69%), Tamil Nadu (9.14 %), and Gujarat (8.76%).

Kerala reported its highest single-day spike of 1,167 COVID-19 cases taking the infection tally to 20,894 while the death toll climbed to 67 with four more fatalities on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, India’s Covid-19 case fatality rate came further down to 2.25 per cent, and the Centre claimed this is a result of effective implementation of containment strategy combined with house-to-house surveys, aggressive testing and standardised clinical management protocols.

(With inputs from agencies)