India records 28,903 Covid-19 cases in highest daily spike this year

Maharashtra's count crosses 23,000 mark, highest in 2021, while Delhi records 536 new cases, most in 2.5 months

India recorded its highest daily tally of coronavirus cases this year with 28,903 new infections, taking the total Covid-19 tally to 11,438,734, according to the Union Health Ministry data updated on Wednesday.

The death toll increased to 159,044 with 188 new fatalities, the highest in around two months, the data updated at 8 am showed. Registering an increase for the seventh day in a row, the total active caseload has increased to 234,406 which now comprises 2.05 per cent of the total infections, while the recovery rate has further dropped to 96.56 per cent, the data stated.

As many as 30,254 new infections were recorded in a span of 24 hours on December 13.

The number of people who have recuperated from the disease surged to 11,045,284, while the case fatality rate has  dropped to 1.39 per cent, the data stated.

India's Covid-19 tally had crossed the 2-million mark on August 7, 3 million on August 23, 4 million on September 5 and 5 million on September 16. It went past 6 million on September 28,  7 million on October 11, crossed 8 million on October 29,  9 million on November 20 and surpassed the 10-million mark on December 19.

Maharashtra

The state reported as many as 23,179 new cases on Wednesday, the highest single-day infection count so far in 2021, a health official said.

This is the sixth highest one-day spike of infection cases in the state since the pandemic began last year.

With these new cases, Maharashtra's overall infection count rose to 2,370,507, the official said.

Delhi

The Union Territory on Wednesday recorded 536 new cases, the highest in about two-and-a-half months, while there more persons died from the pathogen, the Health Department said.

The number of active cases rose to 2,702 from 2,488 a day ago, according to a health bulletin.

The 536 new cases took the infection tally to 6,45,025 and 6.31 lakh people have recovered so far. The positivity rate rose to 0.66 per cent. Three new fatalities took the toll to 10,948, the bulletin said.

Second wave or ripple

The surge in cases in Mumbai and other parts of Maharashtra in the past few days is not the "ripple in the first wave" but a "mighty scary second wave", a top health official said on Wednesday.

Speaking during a discussion on news channel NDTV 24x7, civic-run KEM Hospital's Dean Hemant Deshmukh said the case numbers were now getting scary.

"Of late, we realise that this (surge) is not a ripple in the first wave, but a mighty scary second wave itself, which is starting," Deshmukh told the television channel.

Deshmukh said the mortality rate was less this time, and it may be because the virulence is low.

"A virus is likely to mutate all the time and so this mutation is definitely causing a different kind of coronavirus and a different kind of Covid-19 presentation altogether in March, 2021," he said.