Active cases rose to almost 2.9 lakh on Friday, having risen by more than 54,000 in the past three days. More than 19,000 active cases were added to India’s count on Thursday, the highest increase in a single day since Sept. 10, when the pandemic was at its peak with more than 90,000 daily cases recorded.
Active cases increased in 29 of 36 states / UT on Thursday. A high active case count not only indicates a greater spread of the infection, it also increases the likelihood of a greater number of deaths in the coming days.
The daily death toll from the virus rose to 188, the highest since January 14. Although daily deaths have been on the rise, the case fatality rate remains low due to a much larger increase in cases.
India reported 40,944 new cases on Friday, up from 39,703 the day before. The seven-day moving average of daily cases surpassed 30,000, going from 29,350 on Thursday to 31,647, a growth of 7.8%. The seven-day average has risen by more than 5% for an unprecedented six days in a row, making it the steepest increase in cases since the pandemic began.
Maharashtra recorded 25,681 new cases on Friday, slightly lower than its highest count of 25,833 reported the previous day. Mumbai recorded 3,063 new cases, the largest addition of Covid infections in a single day in the city.
Up to 17 states and UT reported their highest case count since January. Among these, Punjab reported 2,490 and Chandigarh 214, both highest counts in six months since September last year.
Karnataka added 1,587 cases, the highest since Nov. 25, and Bengaluru alone reported 1,037. Tamil Nadu’s daily case count surpassed 1,000 for the first time this year with 1,087 new infections recorded on Friday, the highest since December 20.
Madhya Pradesh also reported more than 1,000 cases for the first time since December, as daily cases hit the four-figure mark in eight states across the country on Friday.
Other states that continued to see an increase were Chhattisgarh (1,097 cases, the highest since January 4), Haryana (872, the highest since December 14), Delhi (716, the highest since December 27) , Rajasthan (402, highest since Jan 11), Uttar Pradesh (393, highest since Jan 20), Bengal (347, highest since Jan 24), Telangana (313, highest high since Jan 13), Himachal Pradesh (182, highest since Jan 1), J&K (152, highest since Jan 3)), Odisha (110, highest since Jan 31 ) and Jharkhand (105, the highest since January 20).
Kerala recorded 1,984 when the state’s total number of cases exceeded 11 lakh.
.
