India records 1.84 new lakh cases and 1,027 deaths

New Delhi, Apr 14
India reported 1,84,372 fresh COVID-19 cases in the last 24 hours, its highest-ever single-day spike since the outbreak of the pandemic last year. Meanwhile, the country reported 1,027 deaths in the same time span.
The continuous spike in daily cases for over a month has pushed the caseload to 1,38,73,825 while the active cases in the country now stand at 13,65,704, comprising 9.84 per cent of the total infections, while the National COVID-19 recovery rate has dropped to 88.92 per cent. The death toll increased to 1,72,085 with 1,027 daily new fatalities, the highest since October 18, 2020. The active caseload was at its lowest at 1,35,926 on February 12 and it was at its highest at 10,17,754 on September 18, 2020.
The number of people who have recuperated from the disease surged to 1,23,36,036, while the case fatality rate has further dropped to 1.24 per cent, the data stated.
On Tuesday, Maharashtra reported over 60,000 COVID-19 infections while Delhi and Uttar Pradesh saw their highest-ever single-day spike of nearly 13,500 and over 18,000 cases respectively.  
While Delhi Government has imposed night curfew to curb the spread of virus, Maharashtra Government has imposed a pan-State curfew starting from 8 pm today for the next 15 days, during which only essential services will be allowed in the State.
Noting that the trend in India's COVID-19 cases trajectory in the second wave is "worrying", the Centre on Tuesday said States like Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh, Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat need to ramp up the proportion of the RT-PCR tests.
Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan said the previous highest surge has already been crossed and the "trend is going upward and that is a cause for worry". He said the Centre continuously tries to help the States and UTs in tackling the pandemic in a more effective manner.
Over 1.67 crore COVID-19 vaccine doses are still available with States and UTs, the Centre said, underlining that the problem is not of vaccine shortage but of better planning.
"As per 11 am data, unutilised doses available with States and Union Territories for administration is 1,67,20,693. From now till April end, 2,01,22,960 doses are in the supply pipeline to States and UTs," Bhushan said.
"This clearly shows that the problem is of lack of better planning, not of vaccine doses shortage. We have made available vaccine doses to States and UTs from time to time, and as we told you earlier that to bigger States we give supply of four days at once and on fourth and fifth day we replenish the supply. For smaller States, at once we supply 7-8 days vaccine doses and on seventh or eighth day their supply is replenished," he added.  Jagran English