India has reported 39,726 coronavirus cases in the last 24 hours, taking the overall tally to 1,15,14,331. This is the highest surge since November last year. On November 28, a single day spike of 41,810 was reported. Notably, today is the ninth consecutive day when the country had reported sharp increase in the number of daily cases. With the death of 154 people in the last 24 hours, the fatality toll has reached 1,59,370 in India, according to the latest update from the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.
Maharashtra, Kerala and Punjab have contributed the highest to daily cases. With the discharge of 20,654 patients in a day, a total of 1,10,83,679 have been discharged so far. A total of 10,57,383 tests were done on Thursday. The active caseload has mounted to 2,71,282.
So far, 3.9 crore doses of corona vaccine have been administered in the country since the drive began on January 16 after approval for ‘Covishield’ and ‘Covaxin’. More than 17.83 lakh doses were administered on a single day on Thursday.
Here’re some more updates:
*The Yogi Adityanath government will be launching a special drive to vaccinate all inmates lodged in the state prisons.
* Maharashtra registered a new high of Covid-19 cases with 25,833 new patients on Thursday, surpassing the previous single-day peak of 24,886 registered on September 11, 2020, health officials said here.
*After a brief pause, several European Union have said that they would restart vaccination with the AstraZeneca covid-19 vaccine after the European Medicines Agency called it safe and effective to use.
*Brazil on Thursday reported 2,724 deaths from covid-19 in the last 24-hour which is the second highest figure since the onset of the pandemic in February 2020.
* As of March 15, more than 40,700 people across the country of Laos have been given the first doses of Covid-19 vaccine, a media report said.
Meanwhile, the overall number of global Covid-19 cases has surpassed 121.7 million, while the deaths have surged to more than 2.68 million, according to the Johns Hopkins University.