COVID-19: Record Single-Day Spike of Nearly 39,000 Cases Takes India’s Tally Beyond 10.7 Lakh, Death Toll Reaches 26,816 | Key Points

The highest single-day spike in cases comes a day after Dr VK Monga, the Chairman of IMA Hospital Board of India claimed that community spread of deadly virus has started in India and the situation is quite worsening

New Delhi: With a record spike of 38,902 cases, India’s tally of confirmed COVID-19 cases climbed to 10,77,618 on Sunday. The death toll due to the novel coronavirus rose to 26,816 as 543 people succumbed to the infection in the last 24 hours. “Highest single day spike of 38,902 cases and 543 deaths reported in India in the last 24 hours. Total COVID-19 positive cases stand at 10,77,618 including 3,73,379 active cases, 6,77,423 cured/discharged/migrated and 26,816 deaths”, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare said today.

The highest single-day spike in cases comes a day after Dr VK Monga, the Chairman of IMA Hospital Board of India claimed that community spread of deadly virus has started in India and the situation is quite worsening. “Every day the number of cases is increasing by more than around 30,000. This is really a bad situation for the country. There are so many factors connected with it but overall this is now spreading to rural areas. This is a bad sign. It now shows a community spread”, Monga said.

Here are the top developments: 

The rate of recovery fell slightly to 62.93 per cent. India, however, remains the third worst-affected country after the US and Brazil.

1,37,91,869 samples tested for COVID-19 up to 18th July, of which 3,58,127 were tested yesterday, said Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR).

AIIMS Delhi will begin human trials of India’s first indigenous Covid-19 vaccine, Covaxin, from next week on 100 healthy volunteers aged between 18 and 55.

Maharashtra remained the worst-hit state, with over 2.9 lakh cases and 11,452 casualties followed by Tamil Nadu and Delhi.

Complete lockdown being observed in the Uttar Pradesh this weekend, to curb the spread of COVID-19.

The district administration of Kerala’s Thiruvananthapuram on Saturday declared and divided the coastal hamlets of of the city in three ‘critical containment zones’ and clamped a complete lockdown for 10 days to break the chain of COVID-19 transmission.

The overall number of global COVID-19 cases has increased to over 14.2 million, while the deaths have topped to more than 601,000.