India records biggest spike in new cases in over 4 months

NEW DELHI, Mar 24
As many as 47,262 more people tested positive for Covid-19 in the last 24 hours, taking the cumulative caseload in India to 1,17,34,058, said the Union Health Ministry on Wednesday.
This is the biggest spike in daily cases the country has seen in over 130 days. India had last recorded over 47,000 cases in early November 2020.
Wednesday's number is also a steep hike when compared to a day ago when the daily cases had seen a slight decline and rested at 40,715.
Maharashtra, Punjab, Karnataka, Gujarat, Chhattisgarh and Tamil Nadu have reported a surge in new infections and accounted for 80.90% of the cases.
Among these, Maharashtra continues to be the biggest contributor as the State clocked in 28,699 fresh infections in the last 24 hours.
In addition to this, the death toll in the country has reached 1,60,441 with 275 more people succumbing to the disease in the same duration. The fatalities have seen a big jump too as the counted rested at 199 on Tuesday.
As many as 23,907 recuperated from the disease in the last 24 hours, taking the total number of recoveries to 1,12,05,160.
The number was 3,45,377 on Tuesday while it stood at 3,34,646 on Monday.
India's Covid-19 tally had crossed the 20 lakh mark on 7 August, 30 lakh on 23 August, 40 lakh on 5 September and 50 lakh on 16 September. It went past 60 lakh on 28 September, 70 lakh on 11 October, crossed 80 lakh on 29 October, 90 lakh on 20 November and surpassed the one-crore mark on 19 December.
India had tested 23,64,38,861 samples for Covid-19 until 22 March, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) said on Wednesday.
Out of these, 10,25,628 samples were tested on Tuesday.
Vaccinations in India
The country has so far administered 5,08,41,286 anti-Covid jabs.
The countrywide vaccination drive was rolled out on 16 January with healthcare workers getting inoculated and vaccination of the frontline workers started from 2 February.
The next phase of Covid-19 vaccination commenced on 1 March for those who are above 60 years of age and for people aged 45 and above with specified comorbid conditions.
Further expanding the gamut of the inoculation drive, Union Minister of Information and Broadcasting Prakash Javadekar on Tuesday announced that everyone above the age of 45 years can get themselves vaccinated from 1 April.
"It has been decided that from 1st April, the vaccine will open for everybody above 45 years of age. We request that all eligible should immediately register and get vaccinated," said Javadekar.