India records 16,838 new COVID-19 cases, 113 deaths in past 24 hours

New Delhi: India’s overall COVID-19 cases surged to 11,173,761 after 16,838 people were tested positive for the virus in the past 24 hours, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare said on Friday.

The death toll from the disease has reached 1,57,548 people, with 113 new fatalities being recorded over the past day. More than 10.83 million people have recovered in India since the start of the outbreak. A day earlier, the country registered 17,407 new COVID-19 cases and 113 deaths.

Punjab reported more than 1,000 cases for the first time since November 15. The state found 1,071 cases on Thursday, the highest since October 13. It is also the first state, other than Maharashtra and Kerala, to report more than 1,000 cases since January 10. Maharashtra reported 8,998 cases on Friday.

Across the country, there are now 1.76 lakh active cases, nearly half of which, more than 86,000, are in Maharashtra. The number of active COVID-19 cases has increased to 1,76,319, accounting for 1.58 per cent of the total caseload, according to the data.

While the number of registrations for jabs against Covid-19 in India is on the rise, not all private hospitals are being transparent about the slots they have available for vaccinations, according to National Health Authority CEO RS Sharma. Terming it a “worrying” trend, he said the government is gearing up to take action against those who do not “rectify” this.

India comes second in terms of the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases, following the United States, with more than 28.82 million COVID-19 patients.

The World Health Organization declared the COVID-19 outbreak a pandemic on March 11. To date, more than 115.59 million people have been infected with the coronavirus worldwide, with over 2.56 million fatalities, according to Johns Hopkins University. (UNI)