India recorded 1,31,968 new Covid-19 cases, the highest single-day spike since the start of the novel coronavirus pandemic last year, on Friday, with ten states driving the second-wave surge, while 780 deaths in the last 24 hours, the highest since 18 October last year, took the death toll to 1,67,642, according to Union Health Ministry data.

In Bengal, over 3,500 people were detected Covid positive in a single day including, nearly 1,000 from Kolkata.

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Recording the highest single-day case count and death toll of this year, the state registered 3,648 fresh Covid cases and 8 deaths today.

The total Covid case count is 6,06,455 and the death toll is 10,378 in Bengal till now while there are 18,603 active cases. Kolkata recorded 987 cases and 6 deaths while North 24-Parganas recorded 884 fresh cases in the last 24 hours.

The developments come as the Centre and some of the Opposition parties are engaged in a tussle on vaccine numbers with states like Maharashtra claiming that they had to shut inoculation centres due to lack of stock.

Registering a steady increase for the 30th day in a row, the number of active Covid-19 cases reached 9,79,608, which is 7.5 per cent of the total infections, according to the data updated at 8 a.m. Ten states ~ Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Karnataka, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat and Rajasthan ~ have shown a steep rise in daily Covid-19 cases accounting for 83.29 per cent of the new infections, the Health Ministry said.

Of the 1,31,968 new Covid cases reported as of Friday morning, Maharashtra reported the highest daily new cases at 56,286. It is followed by Chhattisgarh with 10,652 while Uttar Pradesh reported 8,474 new cases. Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh, Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh and Kerala cumulatively account for 73.24 per cent of India’s total active cases.

Maharashtra alone accounts for 53.84 per cent of the total active caseload of the country. India’s cumulative recoveries stand at 1,19,13,292 with 61,899 recoveries being registered in a span of 24 hours. In a meeting with chief ministers on Thursday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi directed all states and Union Territories to focus on aggressive testing and microcontainment to curb the spread of Covid-19.