India reported its biggest daily rise this year of 25,320 Covid-19 cases on Sunday. This is the fourth day that cases have consistently risen over 20,000 infections. Until March, only twice had cases crossed 20,000 in January.
So far India has reported 11.36 million cases of which 2,07,703 cases are active infections.
The rise in infections were led by the Maharashtra, Kerala, Punjab, Karnataka, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu and Madhya Pradesh who accounted for 87.73% of new cases. Maharashtra accounted for the highest number of cases at 15,602.
India's Covid deaths increased by 161 to 158,607 over the last 24 hours, a notable spike considering an average of about a 100 daily deaths since February.
Close to 30 million vaccine doses have been administered since the beginning of the drive on January 16 with around 1.5 million of those given between Saturday and Sunday morning, according to the latest figures from the Ministry of Health. About 1.4 million of those doses were administered in the last 24 hours.
The maximum deaths were also recorded in the States with the rising caseload with Maharashtra registering 88 fatalities followed by Punjab with 22 deaths and Kerala with 12 deaths.
Since atleast February 16 there has been a gradual uptick in fresh infections, that for most part of the previous fortnight had declined to as little as 8,000 daily infections.
A team deputed by the Centre to understand the surge in Maharashtra had reported on 1st March that among the possible reasons for the growing number of cases in the city were — COVID inappropriate behaviour due to “lack of fear of disease,” pandemic fatigue, missed cases, super spreading events and crowds due to recent gram panchayat elections, marriages, re-opening of schools, and crowded public transport.
However, the report stressed that the situation in Maharashtra was not unique and a similar combination of events was responsible for a surge in other States too.
