India records over 1L new Covid cases in single day for 1st time

New Delhi: With India registering a record 1,03,558 fresh Covid-19 cases in the last 24 hours, it is very evident that the infection is back with a bang as the unprecedented spurt in new cases has surpassed the country's earlier record of 97,894 cases which were reported on September 17 last year.

According to Health Ministry's data, the record daily high since the outbreak of the pandemic has pushed the nationwide Covid-19 tally to 1,25,89,067, which includes 7,41,830 active cases, 1,16,82,136 recoveries and 1.65,101 fatalities. In the last 24 hours, 52,847 patients have recovered and 478 succumbed to the disease.

Notably, last year, it took 76 days for the single-day rise in Coronavirus cases in India to reach the then peak of 97,894 from 20,000. However, this time, the daily rise in cases have increased at a much faster pace taking just 25 days (March 10 to April 4) to cross the grim milestone of one-lakh infections.

Registering a steady increase for the 26th day in a row, the active cases have increased to 7,41,830 comprising 5.89 per cent of the total infections, while the recovery rate has further dropped to 92.80 per cent, the ministry data stated.

As per the Health ministry, eight states — Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh, Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Tamil Nadu, Madhya Pradesh and Punjab — have shown a steep rise in the Covid daily new cases as 81.90 per cent of the new cases are reported from these states.

Maharashtra has reported the highest daily new cases at 57,074 (55.11 per cent), followed by Chhattisgarh with 5,250 new cases and Karnataka that reported 4,553 new cases.

The Mumbai Police on Monday issued prohibitory orders under Section 144 of the CrPC banning the assembly of five or more people at public places in the city from 7 am to 8 pm from Mondays to Fridays till April 30. The order also imposed a night curfew on weekdays and a strict lockdown on weekends beginning from 8 pm on Friday till 7 am on Monday.

Maharashtra, Karnataka, Chhattisgarh, Kerala and Punjab cumulatively account for 75.88 per cent of the total active cases in the country and Maharashtra alone accounts for nearly 58.23 per cent of the total active caseload of the country.

The other states that have started witnessing a rise in Covid-19 cases are Haryana, Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Bihar, Uttarakhand, etc. In terms of deaths, eight states account for 84.52 per cent of the new deaths and Maharashtra has witnessed a maximum of 222 casualties, followed by Punjab which has reported 51 daily deaths.

Union Health minister Harsh Vardhan will on Tuesday hold a meeting with health ministers of 11 states and Union Territories, which has been witnessing a surge in cases, to review the situation there.

In view of the recent rise in daily cases and daily mortalities, the Centre has constituted 50 high-level multidisciplinary public health teams and deployed them to 50 districts across Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh and Punjab.

The teams are being rushed to 30 districts of Maharashtra, 11 in Chhattisgarh and nine districts of Punjab to assist the state health department and local authorities in Covid-19 surveillance, control and containment measures. The two-member high level team consists of a clinician/epidemiologist and a public health expert. Three senior officers have been appointed as nodal officers for these three states. Vijoy Kumar Singh, AS&FA, Ministry of Textile, has been deployed as the nodal officer for Punjab, while Richa Sharma, AS, Ministry of Environment is the nodal officer for Chhattisgarh and Kunak Kumar, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Housing, is the nodal officer for Maharashtra.