India Registers Steep Covid-19 Surge as Cases Triple in Three Weeks, Deaths Rise by 51 Per Cent

India recorded a 51 percent jump in weekly Covid-19 cases, with this week case tally 1.3 lakh higher than the count in the previous seven days, making it the highest weekly spike in infections till date. Covid death also registered the sharpest ever rise of 51 percent as the country recorded 1,857 fatalities during the week, highest during December last year.

As the fresh case hits 168-day-high on Sunday with 68,266 cases, the highest cases were registered from Maharashtra with 40,414 infections. The state had reached the 26 lakh-mark of cases only on March 25. India reached 3.9 lakh cases during this week, highest since October last year, a Times of India Report said.

On the other hand, Karnataka logged over 3,000 new cases after a gap of four months, and 12 related fatalities, taking the caseload to 9.87 lakh and the toll to 12,504. The state had last reported over 3,000 fresh cases on November 5, 2020, with 3,156 cases.

The caseload in the country has tripled in the past three week as 1.17 lakh cases were recorded in the first week of March, which was less than a third of the current week’s tally of 3,93,056. The caseload crossed 1.2 crore on Sunday.

Eight states and UTs have a weekly positivity rate of coronavirus infection higher than the national average of 5.04 per cent, with Maharashtra recording the highest rate at 22.78 per cent, Union Health ministry said on Sunday.

Apart from Maharashtra, the other seven states and UTs with higher positivity rate than national average are Chandigarh (11.85 per cent positivity rate), Punjab (8.45 per cent), Goa (7.03 per cent), Puducherry (6.85 per cent), Chhattisgarh (6.79 per cent), Madhya Pradesh (6.65 per cent) and Haryana (5.41 per cent).

It is also pertinent to not that the while the last 10 lakh cases were registered in 35 days, the previous 10 million took 65 days, indicating that the new rise is almost double.

Eight states cumulatively account for 84.74 per cent of the new cases reported in the past 24 hours on Sunday while fourteen states and UTs have not reported any Covid-19 deaths in the last 24 hours.

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