COVID-19 cases continue to surge in India even as recoveries cross 2L mark

New Delhi: With a record 13,586 COVID-19 cases being added in a single day in the last 24 hours, India has registered over 10,000 cases for the eighth day in a row. The continuing upsurge has pushed the case tally to 3,80,532, while the death toll now stands at 12,573, as per the latest Union Health Ministry data.

In some positive news, the number of recoveries  crossed the two lakh mark and stands at 2,04,710, while there are 1,63,248 total COVID-19 active cases.  "Thus, around 53.79 per cent patients have recovered so far," an official said.

Coronavirus cases in Maharashtra, the worst affected state, have reached 1,20,504, while Tamil Nadu has recorded 52,334 cases so far. Third worst-hit Delhi is just 21 short of crossing the 50 thousand cases mark.

Of the 336 new deaths reported till Friday morning, 100 were in Maharashtra, 65 in Delhi, 49 in Tamil Nadu, 31 in Gujarat, 30 in Uttar Pradesh, 12 each in Karnataka and West Bengal, 10 in Rajasthan, six in Jammu and Kashmir, five in Punjab, four each in Haryana and Madhya Pradesh, three in Telangana, two in Andhra Pradesh and one each in Assam, Jharkhand and Kerala. 

Meanwhile, the union government has launched a mobile testing lab for COVID-19 to be used in remote and inaccessible parts of the country. These mobile labs will have the capability to perform 25 COVID-19 RT-PCR tests, and 300 ELISA tests in a day. Besides, they can also conduct additional tests for TB, HIV etc, union health ministry said. In a parallel development, Delhi has cut down the cost of testing from Rs 4500 to Rs 2400 and introduced Rapid antigen testing kits.