For the second consecutive day, India has reported more than two lake COVID-19 infected cases. In totality, India records 2,17,353 daily coronavirus cases as the country grapples with shortages of hospital beds, oxygen, medicines and vaccine doses. The fresh cases in the deadly second wave took the total caseload to over 1.42 crore.
Maharashtra, the country’s worst-affected state, reported 61,695 new coronavirus cases, bringing the total to 36,39,855, while 349 new fatalities brought the total to 59,153. The state is under curfew until the end of April. Maharashtra is followed by the southern states of Kerala, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, and Andhra Pradesh in terms of total caseload.
Kerala has decided to conduct mass COVID-19 testing. In the next two days, the state hopes to conduct 2 lakh to 2.5 lakh tests.
Karnataka and its capital, Bengaluru, experienced the pandemic’s highest single-day spike to date, with 14,738 new cases reported. Bengaluru is home to 10,497 of them. While Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa called an emergency meeting today to discuss the situation, his administration has ruled out a lockdown.
After recording over 17,000 Covid cases on Wednesday, the Delhi government imposed a weekend curfew and ordered shopping malls, gyms, and spas to close from this evening to Monday morning. On Thursday, there were 16,699 new cases in the capital.
Rajasthan has also declared a weekend curfew in the state from 6 p.m. today to 5 a.m. Monday. The state had 33 Covid deaths and a total of 6,658 new cases of the disease.