86% of India’s new Covid-19 cases from 6 states, says health ministry

Maharashtra, Kerala, Punjab, Karnataka, Gujarat and Tamil Nadu together account for 85.91% of the new cases of the coronavirus disease reported in the last 24 hours in India, according to the data released by the Union ministry of health and family welfare on Thursday as the country logged 22,854 fresh infections.

Maharashtra, which accounts for almost 60 per cent of the Covid-19 cases reported in the country, saw the highest number of infections at 13,659, followed by Kerala at 2,475 and Punjab with 1,393, the health ministry said.

The ministry also said Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Punjab, Madhya Pradesh, Delhi, Gujarat, Karnataka and Haryana continue to report an uptick in the number of fresh cases.

Maharashtra, India’s worst-hit state, also saw the maximum casualties at 54, followed by Punjab with 17 and Kerala with 14 in the last 24 hours, the ministry’s data showed. Six Indian states account for 82.54% of the new deaths in the country, it further said. There were 126 deaths reported in the country in the 24-hour period.

At least 19 states and Union territories have not reported any deaths due to the viral disease. These regions include Gujarat, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Assam, Odisha, Goa, Jharkhand, Puducherry, Lakshadweep, Sikkim, Ladakh, Manipur, Daman and Diu and Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Tripura, the Andaman and Nicobar Islands and Arunachal Pradesh.

Showing the change in the number of active cases for the states in the 24-hour period, the health ministry said Kerala reported the maximum decline in the figure while Maharashtra the maximum increase. India has 189,226 active Covid-19 cases, accounting for 1.68% of its total caseload, according to the health ministry.

More than 25.6 million vaccine doses have so far been administered in the country through 478,168 sessions, according to a provisional report compiled at Thursday 7am, the ministry said.

Data also shows that 13,17,357 vaccine doses were administered with 10,30,243 people given the first dose and 287,114 healthcare and frontline workers were given the second dose on Wednesday, the 54th day of the government’s ongoing vaccination drive.