Coronavirus News: India records over 7,000 new cases, 39% jump since yesterday

An upward trend in new Covid-19 cases continued in India on Thursday, with the country recording 7,240 new cases over the last 24 hours. With this, active cases rose to 32,498. 

Maharashtra on Wednesday recorded 2,701 new Covid-19 cases — the highest in nearly four months — of which, 1,765 patients were from Mumbai.

The state had recorded 1,881 new coronavirus cases on Tuesday, 81 per cent more than the previous day. Of this, 1,242 were detected in Mumbai, almost double the Monday's count.

Maharashtra also reported one case of B.A.5 variant on Tuesday. West Bengal, too, witnessed a slight rise in cases, with 85 fresh cases of the contagion reported from various districts of the state taking the tally to 20,19,832.

The number of new coronavirus cases and deaths reported globally fell everywhere except the Middle East and Southeast Asia last week, according to a World Health Organisation weekly report released Wednesday.

In its latest weekly update on the pandemic, the UN health agency said confirmed cases dropped 12% to more than 3 million and reported deaths declined 22 per cent to about 7,600.