COVID-19: Delhi overtakes Kerala, Maha as highest contributor to new cases in 24 hrs

Delhi overtook Maharashtra and Kerala by reporting 7,178 COVID-19 cases in a span of 24 hours, becoming the largest contributor to the new 50,356 single day infections, according to Union Health Ministry on Saturday.

Seventy-seven percent of these new cases of COVID-19 are from 10 states and union territories -- - Delhi, Kerala, Maharashtra, West Bengal, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan.

Kerala recorded 7,002 new cases followed by Maharashtra at 6,870 new cases on Friday, the ministry said.

A total of 50,356 new coronavirus infections were reported in a span of 24 hours, while 53,920 recoveries were being recorded during the same period, it said.

The trend of India's daily new COVID-19 recoveries exceeding the single-day cases for the last five weeks played a pivotal role in pushing down the active caseload which is presently pegged at 5.16 lakh cases and comprises 6.11 percent of total cases, the ministry said.

"This trend has been observed for the last five weeks. This also played a pivotal role in pushing down the active caseload which is presently pegged at 5.16 lakh," the ministry said.

The last five weeks have seen a continuous decline in average daily new cases of COVID-19.

The average daily new cases have dropped to 46,000 cases from more than 73,000 average daily new cases in the first week of October.

The active cases are on a sustained decline as a result of the aforementioned trend, the ministry said.

The number of people who have recuperated from the disease has surged to 78,19,886, pushing the national recovery rate to 92.41 percent. The recoveries exceed active cases by 73,03,254.

The ministry said that 79 percent of the new recovered cases are observed to be concentrated in 10 states and UTs.

Maharashtra continues to have the maximum number of single-day recoveries. As many as 11,060 more recoveries have pushed up the state's tally to 15,62,342.

In keeping with the national trend, 18 states and UTs are reporting a higher recovery rate than the national average.

Also, 577 case fatalities have been reported in a span of 24 hours.

Of these, ten states and UTs -- Maharashtra, Delhi, West Bengal, Chhattisgarh, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Odisha -- account for nearly 83 percent, the ministry said.

More than 27.9  percent of new fatalities reported are from Maharashtra (161 deaths). Delhi and West Bengal follow with 64 and 55 new deaths respectively.

India's COVID-19 caseload mounted to 84,62,080 with 50,356 infections being reported in a day, while the death toll climbed to 1,25,562 with 577 new fatalities, the data updated at 8 AM showed.