Recovery rate improves to 63.13%, record 28,472 patients back home in last 24 hours

New Delhi: Despite India registering over 35,000 fresh COVID-19 cases for the fourth day in a row, the country's recovery rate has improved to 63.13 per cent on Wednesday with a record 28,472 patients recuperating from the disease and being released from various hospitals in the last 24 hours while the case fatality rate further dropped to 2.41 per cent.

India registered 37,724 new infections on Wednesday pushing the country's COVID-19 tally to 11,92,915 while the death toll rose to 28,732 with 648 people succumbing to the disease in a day.

Notably, as per the data updated by the states, the total tally of Coronavirus cases crossed 12 lakh mark on Wednesday.

There are 19 states/UTs that have registered recovery rates more than the national average and among those, Delhi is at the top with 84.83 per cent followed by Ladakh (84.31 per cent), Telangana (78.37 per cent), Haryana (76.29 per cent), Andaman & Nicobar Islands (75 per cent), Rajasthan (72.50 per cent), Gujarat (72.30 per cent), Chhattisgarh (71.81 per cent), Assam (71.05 per cent), Odisha (70.96 per cent) and Tamil Nadu (70.12 per cent).

According to the Union Health ministry's data, recoveries have climbed to 7,53,049 exceeding active cases of Coronavirus infection by 3,41,916.

"Effective clinical management of COVID-19 cases has led to an improvement in recovery figures while case fatality has been falling continuously," the ministry said in a statement.

Case fatality rate has dropped to 2.41 per cent from Tuesday's 2.43 per cent.

According to the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), a total of 1,47,24,546 samples have been tested up to July 21 with 3,43,243 samples being tested on Tuesday. The ICMR has ramped up its testing facilities to 1,276.

Of the 648 deaths reported in the last 24 hours, 246 are from Maharashtra, 75 from Tamil Nadu, 62 from Andhra Pradesh, 61 from Karnataka, 37 from Uttar Pradesh among others.

Kerala, for the first time on Wednesday, breached the 1000-mark in Covid cases in a single day after it declared 1,038 more positive cases on Wednesday. Out of this, 785 cases are due to local transmission. While addressing a press conference, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said the state may go for complete lockdown again as the cases are on the rise. "We had previously implemented a complete lockdown in the state. We are aware of such viewpoints (complete lockdown). Although it has not been decided yet, I think we will have to consider it," he said.

The Jammu and Kashmir administration has announced a six-day lockdown in the Valley, except for Bandipore district, to stem the spread of the virus. Bhopal will also be under lockdown from July 24 to August 3.

Manipur Chief Minister N Biren Singh on Wednesday announced 7 days total lockdown in the entire state starting Thursday afternoon which may be extended upto 14 days. The lockdown will come into force from 2 pm. Briefing the media, the Chief Minister said the decision was taken by the state Cabinet in an emergency meeting held on Wednesday evening in view of the rising cases of COVID-19 particularly cases without travel history.

Bengal is all set to break the chain of the increasing number of COVID-19 cases with strict lockdown norms to be imposed on Thursday — the first day of the bi-weekly lockdown announced by the state government.