India reported the highest daily surge in Covid 19 cases with 81,466 fresh infections since yesterday ,taking the tally to 1.23 crore.
According to the reports by the Health ministry, states like Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh, Karnataka, Punjab, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh accounted for 84.61 per cent of the new cases reported in a span of 24 hours.
The Covid 19 surge in the country is due to a new strain and the situation is exactly like the one in the UK when the virus underwent a mutation around Christmas, said Dr Randeep Guleria, chief of Delhi's All India Institute of Medical Sciences.
India is currently in the third phase of COVID-19 vaccination drive with over 36 lakh people getting vaccinated on Thursday, taking the total number of beneficiaries in the countrywide vaccination drive to over six crore. Taking in to account the daily surge in cases, central government has recently announced to operationalize both private and public vaccination centers throughout the month of April, including the national holidays.
With 1.23 crore infections, India currently has the third highest number of cases in the world after the United States and Brazil. Worldwide, the number of cases have surged to nearly 12 crore; 28 lakh deaths have so far been recorded.