New Delhi: India’s COVID-19 tally climbed to 78.14 lakh with 53,370 fresh cases in a day, while 70,16,046 people have so far recuperated pushing the national recovery rate to 89.78 per cent on Saturday. 650 deaths reported in the last 24 hours, took the death toll to 1,17,956.

Of the total 78,14,682 COVID cases, 6,80,680 are currently active, which comprises 8.71 per cent of the total caseload. The COVID-19 case fatality rate has further declined to 1.51 per cent, said the health ministry.

Maharashtra continues to be the worst-hit with a total of 16,25,197 cases, including 42,831 deaths; followed by Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh and Delhi.

According to the data from the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), India conducted 12,69,479 sample tests in a single day on Friday, taking the total number of samples tested so far to 10,13,82,564.

Key developments so far: 

Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan said that the next three months are going to be decisive in determining the situation of COVID in the country and urged people to follow COVID appropriate behaviour during the coming festival and winter season.

Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, chairperson and managing director of Bengaluru-based Biocon Ltd is hopeful that the vaccine against deadly COVID-19 will be in India by June.

ITBP had established first COVID care centre in Chhawla where almost 1200 Indians including children & 42 other nationals from 7 countries including nationals of China and Italy got best medical facilities, said DG ITBP SS Deswal
The overall number of global coronavirus cases has surpassed the 42 million mark, while the deaths have soared to 1,143,290.
The US is the worst-hit country with the world’s highest number of cases and deaths at 8,484,991 and 223,914, respectively.