New Delhi: India registered 56,211 new COVID-19 cases in the last 24 hours, as per the data of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) released on Tuesday (March 30, 2021) morning. The sudden unprecedented surge in coronavirus infections has now taken the country's active count to 5.40 lakh.
There were 37,028 recoveries in the past 24 hours, following which, India's COVID-19 recovery rate improved to 94.19%.
India's total coronavirus caseload has now soared to 1,20,95,855, of which, 1,13,93,021 have recovered, whereas, 1,62,114 people have succumbed to the virus.
The country has been reporting more than 55,000 infections for the past few days and the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare's on Monday stated that eight states namely Maharashtra, Karnataka, Punjab, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Chhattisgarh, account for most of the new cases.
Maharashtra, the worst coronavirus-hit state in India, has been recording a huge surge followed by Karnataka and Punjab.
This also led the Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan to chair a high-level meet on March 27 with 12 states and UTs that are witnessing a rise in cases. According to the MoHFW, the states were informed that the country has seen the sharpest rise in weekly COVID-19 cases and fatalities since May 2020 (7.7% and 5.1% respectively).
The states and UTs were advised to focus on stringent containment and public health measures in 46 high burden districts.
The following five-fold strategy was also laid out for adoption by the states and UTs for effective containment and management of the COVID-19 pandemic:
1. Increased testing and vaccination
2. Effective tracing
3. Prompt isolation
4. Efficient clinical treatment, and
5. Adherence to COVID Appropriate Behaviour.
Meanwhile, the total COVID-19 vaccination number has also increased to 6,11,13,354, of which, 5,22,11,398 have taken the first dose and 89,01,956 have taken the second jab of the coronavirus vaccine. The COVID-19 vaccination drive, reportedly the world's largest, had kicked-off on January 16, 2021. |
