40% spike in daily Covid cases

India on Thursday reported a near 40% jump in daily Covid-19 cases with 12,213 fresh cases reported till Thursday. Daily infections had remained below the 10,000-mark in the country since February 26. The total active caseload in the country went up to 58,215.

The daily positivity rate has gone up to 2.35% while weekly positivity was 2.38%. The number of daily tests conducted went up to 0.51 million compared to 0.32 million two days ago. The country reported 11 deaths. Total deaths stood at 524,803 while 42.66 million recovered from the infection.

Union health minister, Mansukh Mandaviya said the country had completed the vaccination of over 89% of its adult population. The world’s largest vaccination drive continues to create new benchmarks, the minister said. The country had vaccinated 90.37 crore people with both doses.

Total vaccine doses administered in the country till Thursday evening stood 1.95 billion doses.

Maharashtra, Kerala, Delhi and Karnataka continue to account for a majority of the new cases in the country. Maharashtra recorded 4,024 Covid-19 cases with 2,366 cases and two Covid-19 deaths in Greater Mumbai.

The Maharashtra health ministry has confirmed it had detected four new cases of B.A.5 variant of the virus from Mumbai, Thane and Pune. However, the spike in cases has not led to an increase in hospitalisation with Maharashtra reporting hospitalisation rate of 2-3%.