For the second day in a row, India reported a nearly 40 percent spike after it registered 7,240 fresh Covid cases in the last 24 hours, against the 5,233 infections logged the previous day, the Union Health Ministry said on Thursday. In the same period, the country has reported eight new Covid fatalities, taking the nationwide death toll to 5,24,723.

With 7,240 new coronavirus infections in the last 24 hours, this is India’s highest number of daily cases since March 2.

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The country’s financial capital Mumbai, which has seen a rapid rise in cases, reported 1,765 new infections late on Wednesday, an increase of more than 500 cases from its Tuesday caseload. The country reported eight deaths from Covid-19, the ministry said, taking the official death toll to 524,723 on Thursday.

Meanwhile, the active caseload of the country has also increased to 32,498 cases, accounting for 0.08 percent of the country’s total positive cases.

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The recovery of 3,591 patients in the last 24 hours took the cumulative tally to 4,26,40,301. Consequently, India’s recovery rate stands at 98.71 percent. While the daily positivity rate spiked to 2.13 percent, the weekly positivity rate stood at 1.31 percent.

Also in the same period, a total of 3,40,615 tests were conducted across the country, increasing the overall tally to over 85.38 crores. As of Thursday morning, India’s Covid-19 vaccination coverage exceeded 194.59 crores, achieved via 2,48,87,047 sessions.

Over 3.47 crore adolescents have been administered a first dose of Covid-19 jab since the beginning of the vaccination drive for this age bracket.’]