The Ciovid-19 situation is turning from bad to worse in Delhi. The national Capital recorded the biggest-ever spike in Covid infections on Thursday with 28,867 new Covid-19 cases. On Wednesday, the city had registered 27,561 Covid cases and 40 deaths.
The positivity rate leaped to 29 per cent, and 31 persons lost their lives to the virus during the last 24 hours.
Delhi’s positivity rate on Thursday was higher than what it witnessed on May 3 last year at the peak of the second wave of Covid-19. So far, Delhi has logged over 16.46 lakh cases and more than 25,000 Covid deaths.
The situation was equally bad in Bengaluru which recorded 18,374 on Thursday. Test positivity rate in Bengaluru hits 20 per cent as cases rise to 18,374 today. Karnataka’s capital saw an increase of 18 per cent over Wednesday tally of 15,617. Overall, Karnataka reported 25,005 new Covid-19 cases, 8 deaths. Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai attended a virtual meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the Covid situation in all States.
Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) in an advisory issued has stated that entire apartment complex will be declared “containment zone” for a minimum of seven days in case of more than three Covid-19 cases. The civic body also stated that all residents will be tested and detailed contact tracing will be conducted.
The situation remained static in Maharashtra, while Mumbai saw a slight dip in number of cases compared to Wednesday. Maharashtra on Thursday recorded 46,406 new cases and 36 deaths in the last 24 hours. On Wednesday, the State had reported 46,723 cases. Out of the new cases, as many as 13,702 new cases and 6 deaths were reported from Mumbai as against 16,420 reported on Wednesday.
Pongal, the annual harvest festival and Tamil New Year festivities suffered a setback as Tamil Nadu registered 20,911 new Covid-19 cases on Thursday. Tamil New Year and Pongal falls on Friday and the pandemic have robbed the gaiety and enthusiasm associated with the festivities.
The traditional Jallikkattu (bull taming) will be celebrated with restrictions amidst the Covid-19 and Omicron pandemics.
Though Tamil Nadu and Kerala were showing reduced number of Covid-19 cases throughout December, matters took a turn for the worst in new year as the number of new patients started rising from January 1.
Kerala Minister for Health Veena George said on Thursday that the Health Department diagnosed 13,468 new patients with Covid-19 during the last 24 hours. The death toll till date in Kerala mounted to 50,369.
West Bengal is also seeing no respite from Covid. The State reported 23,467 fresh Covid-19 cases and 26 more fatalities.
On the basis of Wednesday’s case count, India added 2,47,417 new coronavirus infections taking the total tally of Covid-19 cases to 3,63,17,927 according to the Union Health Ministry data updated on Thursday.
It is the highest single-day increase in the ongoing wave. The infections increased by more than 165 per cent compared with the case count a week ago.
Of the total 5,488 cases of Omicron variant reported from 28 States, 2,162 people have recovered or migrated so far.
Assam recorded 3,274 new cases on January 12 after 49,915 samples were tested. The test positivity rate stood at 6.56 per cent. Four new deaths were also reported on the day. The active case count stood at 11,792.
It was no different in Andhra Pradesh, where 3,205 fresh cases were reported in the 24 hours ending January 12 morning.
On Omicron front, Maharashtra recorded the maximum number of 1,367 cases followed by Rajasthan at 792, Delhi 549, Karnataka 479 and Kerala 486. The active cases have increased to 11, 17,531, the highest in 216 days, while the death toll has climbed to 4,85,035 with 380 fresh fatalities, the data updated at 8 am stated.
The active cases comprise 3.08 per cent of the total infections, while the national Covid-19 recovery rate decreased to 95.59 per cent, the Ministry said. An increase of 1,62,212 cases has been recorded in the active Covid-19 caseload in a span of 24 hours.
The daily positivity rate was recorded at 13.11 per cent while the weekly positivity rate was recorded at 10.80 per cent, according to the Ministry. A total of 2,11,298 coronavirus infections were reported in a single day on May 26.
An increase of 1,33,873 cases has been recorded in the active Covid-19 caseload in a span of 24 hours.
India’s Covid-19 tally had crossed the 20-lakh mark on August 7, 2020, 30 lakh on August 23, 40 lakh on September 5 and 50 lakh on September 16. It went past 60 lakh on September 28, 70 lakh on October 11, crossed 80 lakh on October 29, 90 lakh on November 20 and surpassed the one-crore mark on December 19.
India crossed the grim milestone of two crore on May 4 and three crore on June 23.