Continuing with the trend of registering the highest single-day spike in the world, India on Monday reported 78,512 fresh Coronavirus cases in the last 24 hours pushing the tally to cross the 36 lakh-mark.

This is slightly lower than its last surge of 78,761 cases on Sunday, the highest for any country so far since the outbreak in China’s Wuhan.

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As many as 971 people died in the same period taking the death toll to 64,469.

Of the total 36,21,246 Coronavirus cases, 7,81,975 are active while 27,74,802 people have been cured of the deadly infection.

India though the third worst-hit at present, after the US and Brazil, has been reporting the highest number of daily Coronavirus cases in the world for the last four weeks. No other country has reported such continued surge since the pandemic surfaced in December 2019.

The country has been registering over 70,000 cases for the last five days.

Meanwhile, the recovery rate has been gradually rising and currently stands at 76.62 per cent.

India’s COVID-19 positivity rate as on date is 7.46 per cent while the fatality rate has fallen to 1.79 per cent.

According to the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), as many as 8,46,278 samples were tested on Sunday, taking the total to 4,23,07,914 samples being tested till August 30.

Meanwhile, Dr Samiran Panda, the head of Epidemiology and Communicable Diseases at the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), has said that this increase in cases was expected but pointed out that it is not a homogenous phenomenon across the states.

According to the Government, increase in testing is one of the major factors behind the rising number of infections being reported.

Maharashtra continues to be the worst-hit with a total of 7,64,281 cases and 24,103 deaths, followed by Tamil Nadu with 4,15,590 cases and 7,137 deaths. Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, West Bengal, and Bihar come next.

Meanwhile, even as the country continues to register the highest single-day cases in the world, the Government on Saturday announced guidelines for the fourth phase of unlocking — which will be in effect till September 30 — allowing metro services to resume from September 7.

Social, political, academic, sports, religious and other functions will be allowed with a limit of 100 people as part of the new rules from September 21. However, schools, colleges, swimming pools and indoor theatres will remain closed.

Globally, the overall number of Coronavirus cases has topped 25.1 million, while the deaths have increased to over 845,000, according to the Johns Hopkins University.

As of Monday morning, the total number of cases stood at 25,133,368 and the fatalities rose to 845,073, the University’s Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) revealed in its latest update.

The US accounts for the world’s highest number of cases and deaths at 5,995,102 and 183,047 respectively, according to the CSSE.

Brazil comes in the second place with 3,862,311 infections and 120,828 deaths.