India logs highest one-day rise of 1,975 in Coronavirus cases

New Delhi: With the highest ever rise of 1,975 new positive cases in the last 24 hours, India reported total 26,917 cases of COVID-19 on Sunday, while the death toll stood at 826 – a rise of 47 new deaths in a day.

However, Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan, who took stock of the preparedness to overcome COVID-19 in AIIMS Trauma Centre, said that the coronavirus situation in the country is improving as many hotspot districts are moving towards being non-hotspot districts.

With 704 new recoveries in a day, the rate of recovery stood at about 22 per cent as a total of 5,914 patients have been discharged so far from hospitals. The number of active COVID-19 cases stood at 20,177, which includes 111 foreign nationals.

Meanwhile, so far, the ICMR has conducted 6,25,309 tests and the testing labs have been increased to 370 out of which 280 labs are in the ICMR network and 90 are private lab chains.

Of the 47 deaths reported since Saturday evening, 22 are from Maharashtra, eight in Rajasthan, seven from Madhya Pradesh, six in Gujarat and one each from Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir and Tamil Nadu.

Of the total 824 COVID-19 deaths, Maharashtra accounts for the highest number of 323 fatalities, followed by Gujarat (133), Madhya Pradesh (99), Delhi (54), Andhra Pradesh (31) and Rajasthan (33).

The death toll reached 27 in Uttar Pradesh, 26 in Telangana, 23 in Tamil Nadu, while Karnataka and West Bengal have reported 18 deaths each, the ministry said.

Punjab has registered 17 fatalities so far, Jammu and Kashmir six, Kerala four, while Jharkhand and Haryana have recorded three COVID-19 deaths each.

According to the Health Ministry data, the highest number of confirmed cases in the country is from Maharashtra at 7,628, followed by Gujarat (3,071), Delhi (2,625), Rajasthan (2,083), Madhya Pradesh (2,096) and Uttar Pradesh (1,843).

The number of COVID-19 cases has gone up to 1,821 in Tamil Nadu, 1,097 in Andhra Pradesh and 991 in Telangana, while the number of cases has risen to 611 in West Bengal, 501 in Karnataka, 494 in Jammu and Kashmir, 458 in Kerala, 298 in Punjab and 289 in Haryana.

Bihar has reported 251 coronavirus cases, while Odisha has 103 and 67 people have been infected with the virus in Jharkhand and 50 in Uttarakhand.

In a related development, the Health Ministry has said that the production capacity of PPE coveralls required by medical personnel treating COVID-19 cases in the country has been ramped up to more than 1 lakh per day and Bengaluru has emerge as a major hub for its production.