New Delhi: India on Thursday saw a massive spike in its daily death toll with 6,148 fatalities reported in the last 24 hours, according to data released by the Union Health and Family Welfare Ministry. This is the highest number of fatalities recorded in India due to the Covid-19 pandemic in a single day.
The massive jump in the daily death toll comes even as daily infections in the country have been steadily showing a downward trend -- with 94,052 fresh Covid infections reported in a day -- less than one lakh for the third straight day.
The total number of fatalities caused by the pandemic stood at 9,429 after the number of Covid-19 deaths in Bihar was on Wednesday revised drastically upwards by the state health department.
India earlier registered the highest fatalities due to Covid-19 on May 21 with 4,529 deaths, which crossed both the US and Brazil's record deaths in 24 hours. It surpassed the US' 4,468 deaths reported on January 12, 2021; and 4,211 in Brazil on April 6, 2021.
Since May 14, India has recorded over 1 lakh deaths.
With 17,321 cases reported in the past 24 hours, Tamil Nadu is leading the state list. It is followed by Kerala with 15,204 new infections. Maharashtra reported 10,989 cases. Karnataka 10,959, and Andhra Pradesh 8,766 cases. Delhi reported 337 fresh cases and West Bengal 5,384.
The five most affected states by total cases are Maharashtra (5,863,880), Karnataka (2,728,248), Kerala (2,673,166), Tamil Nadu (2,292,025), Andhra Pradesh (1,779,773).
On June 8, India recorded 86,498 cases, the lowest since April 2 when the country logged 89,129 new cases.
India's overall tally of Covid-19 cases now stands at 2,91,83,121 with 11,67,952 active cases and 3,59,676 deaths so far.
After battling a brutal second wave for weeks, fresh Covid cases came down below the three lakh mark for the first time on May 17 after touching a record high of 4,14,188 on May 7.
According to the Health Ministry, a total of 1,51,367 people have been discharged in the last 24 hours, taking the total discharge to 2,76,55,493 to date.
The Health Ministry said that a total of 24,27,26,693 people have been vaccinated so far in the country, including 33,79,261 who were administered vaccines in the last 24 hours.
According to the Indian Council of Medical Research, 37,21,98,253 samples have been tested up to June 9 for Covid-19. Of these 20,04,690 samples were tested on Wednesday.