New Delhi, Aug 19 India recorded 64,531 fresh COVID-19 cases and 1,092 more deaths in past 24 hours, taking the case tally to 27,67,273 and death toll to 52,889, while the recovery rate improved to 73.64 per cent.
As per the Union Ministry update, highest 60,091 patients overcame the disease in single-day, taking the recoveries to 20,37,871.
The active cases increased by 3,348 to 6,76,514. The actual caseload currently comprises less than 1/4th (24.45 per cent) of the total positive cases.
According to the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), as many as 8,01,518 samples were tested on Tuesday, surging the total tests conducted to 3,17,42,782.
State-wise, Maharashtra remains the worst-affected with 6,15,477 cases, followed by Tamil Nadu 3,45,694 and Andhra Pradesh 3,06,261.
In terms of deaths, maximum 20,999 were recorded in Maharashtra, 6,007 in Tamil Nadu and 2,820 in Andhra Pradesh.
Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren went into home quarantine after his cabinet colleague Banna Gupta tested positive for Coronavirus.
Due to the increase in the number of cases, the administration in Andaman and Nicobar Islands extended the ongoing lockdown till August 25 midnight.
Uttar Pradesh touched a new milestone by conducting four million tests while Odisha Chief Minster Naveen Patnaik claimed that his state was leading by testing 1,096 tests per million per day.
The Karnataka government has provided an online service that would enable citizens to know their test result by entering the specimen referral form (SRF) ID.
In Kerala, a 103-year-old centenarian patient recovered and was discharged from Kalamassery Medical College Kochi.
A unique study for COVID-19 surveillance using sewage samples to estimate the spread of the infection in a given locality or area was carried out by Telangana-based CSIR-Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB) and CSIR-Indian Institute of Chemical Technology (IICT) as individuals who were infected shed virus through faeces too.
The novel coronavirus first emerged in the Chinese city of Wuhan in December last year. The World Health Organisation declared it as pandemic on March 11. The deadly virus has since spread to 213 countries and territories.
Globally, United States remains the worst-infected with more than 56 lakh cases, followed by Brazil, recording over 34 lakh infections. In deaths, the US registered highest 1.75 lakh fatalities and 1.10 lakh were recorded in Brazil.
In India, the first case and death was recorded on January 31 and March 13 respectively.
