COVID-19: India records 18,711 new cases

The daily rise in new coronavirus infections were recorded above 18,000 for the second consecutive day taking India's total tally of COVID-19 cases to 1,12,10,799, the Union Health Ministry said on Sunday.

The active cases registered an increase for the fifth consecutive day and the COVID-19 active caseload increased to 1,84,523 which now comprises 1.65 per cent of the total infections.

The recovery rate has dropped further to 96.95 per cent, the ministry data stated.

A total of 18,711 new infections were registered in a day, while the death toll increased to 1,57,756 with 100 daily new fatalities, the data updated at 8 am showed.

On January 29, 18,855 new infections were recorded in a span of 24 hours.

The number of people who have recuperated from the disease surged to 1,08,68,520 which translates to a national COVID-19 recovery rate of 96.95 per cent, while the case fatality rate stands at 1.41 per cent.

India's COVID-19 tally had crossed the 20-lakh mark on August 7, 30 lakh on August 23, 40 lakh on September 5 and 50 lakh on September 16.It went past 60 lakh on September 28, 70 lakh on October 11, crossed 80 lakh on October 29, 90 lakh on November 20 and surpassed the one-crore mark on December 19.

According to the ICMR, 22,14,30,507 samples have been tested up to March 6 with 7,37,830 samples being tested on Saturday.