India on Saturday crossed the 8 lakh-mark with highest single-day spike of 27,114 new COVID-19 cases in the last 24 hours. As many as 519 people died in the same period taking the death toll to 22,123.

With this, the total infections stand at 8,20,916 including 2,83,407 active cases and 5,15,386 people getting cured of the deadly virus.

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However, in a huge relief, the recovery rate among COVID-19 patients has been rising steadily and now stands at 63 per cent while the mortality is one of the lowest in the world at 2.72 per cent.

Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan on Friday said that around 2.7 lakh tests are being done daily and the government is further ramping up testing so that maximum cases can be detected and treated.

He said that despite being such a large country, India has not reached the community transmission stage of COVID-19.

India, however, remains the third worst-affected country after the US and Brazil.

With a spike of 7,862 new cases, Maharashtra remains the worst pandemic hit state in the country. The state has a total of 2,38,461 cases, including 9,893 deaths.

Tamil Nadu is on the second spot with 1,30,261 confirmed cases, of which, 1,829 people have died.

Delhi with a total of 1,09,140 cases, including 3,300 deaths and 84,694 recoveries is on the third spot.

Meanwhile, Kerala, which had previously been successful in flattening the Coronavirus curve, is presently scrambling to contain the situation with the arrival of people from abroad as well as other states.

Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Friday cautioned the society at large about the grave situation the state is passing through with Kerala reporting 426 new COVID cases – another highest single-day spike.

Kerala has so far reported 6950 cases and 27 deaths. The contact spread rate which was 5.11 per cent on June 27, touched 20.64 per cent on Thursday. Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan yesterday announced the extension of the lockdown in Thiruvananthapuram for a week in the wake of rise in cases. Triple lockdown has been imposed in containment zones.

Meanwhile, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) is planning to carry out a nationwide sero-survey to determine the exposure of coronavirus infection among the population, it was announced on Friday.

The new survey will be similar to the one conducted in May, the results of which are still awaited.

A sero-survey involves testing of blood serum of a group of individuals and this is used to monitor trends of the coronavirus disease at the district level. The survey is carried out by the ICMR in tandem with the National Centre for Disease Control and with the help of state Health Departments.

Rajesh Bhushan, Officer on Special Duty in the Union Health Ministry, said that the results of the sero-survey that had been conducted in May, and focused on infections of mid-April is still under process.

Eight states, including Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Delhi, Karnataka and Telangana, account for around 90 per cent of the active COVID-19 cases in the country and 80 per cent of the active cases have been reported from 49 districts, the Group of Ministers was informed at a meeting on Thursday.

Besides, the GoM was told that six states — Maharashtra, Delhi, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal — account for 86 per cent of the deaths caused by COVID-19 and 32 districts account for 80 per cent of such fatalities.

On the global front, the overall number of Coronavirus cases has surged to over 12.4 million, while the deaths have crossed 559,000, according to Johns Hopkins University.

As of Saturday morning, the total number of cases stood at 12,461,962, while the fatalities rose to 559,481, 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 infections and fatalities at 3,182,385 and 134,073, respectively, according to the CSSE.

Brazil comes in the second place with 1,800,827 infections and 70,398 deaths.