India has reported 14,264 new cases in the last 24 hours on Sunday with the overall tally mounting to 1,09,91,651 as the number of new Covid-19 cases showed an upward trend over the past five days, health officials said.

There were 90 more Covid-19 fatalities, taking the overall toll to 1,56,302, said the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare adding that in the past one month, the country has been recording less than 15,000 new infections daily with the toll not going over the 200-mark.

However, in the past few days, the coronavirus cases in various parts of the country suddenly showed a spike.

On Saturday, 13,993 cases were reported, on February 19, the count of new cases was 13,193, on February 18 it was 12,881, on February 17 it was 11,610, on February 16 the number was 9,121 and February 15 had 11,649 cases.

Earlier, the health ministry officials said that the average daily new infections for the last 15 days were oscillating between 9,000 and 12,000 while the deaths were between 78 and 120.

On February 9, India had reported 9,110 new cases, the lowest this year so far. Last year, the lowest 9,633 cases were recorded on June 3.

As per the Ministry’s data, there are 1,45,634 active cases at present after 11,667 patients were discharged in a day. Till now, 1,06,89,715 persons have been discharged so far.

The recovery rate has remained at 97.27 per cent, while the fatality rate is down to 1.42 per cent.

The ministry also informed that 6,70,050 samples were tested on Saturday. The cumulative tests are done by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) so far stands at 21,09,31,530.

Meanwhile, 1,10,85,173 doses of corona vaccine have been administered in the country since the drive began on January 16 after approval for ‘Covishield’ and ‘Covaxin’.

As per the Union Health Ministry, India has become the fattest nation in terms of the vaccine doses administered, even though many countries had launched their vaccination campaigns earlier than her.

More than 74% of the Active Cases of the country are in Kerala and Maharashtra. Of late it is seen that there has been a spike in the daily cases in Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh also. Punjab and J&K too are witnessing a surge in daily new cases.

5 States/UTs have a weekly Positivity Rate more than the National Average. The National average is 1.79%. Maharashtra has the highest weekly positivity rate with 8.10%.

The Centre has advised all these States to work on five major areas. These are:

1. Improve the overall testing numbers by focusing on increasing the proportion of RT-PCR tests.
2. All negative Rapid Antigen Test results to be mandatorily followed by RT-PCR test and no such negative persons are to be missed.
3. Refocus on strict and comprehensive surveillance as well as stringent containment in selected districts.
4. Regular monitoring of the mutant strains through testing followed by Genome Sequencing, as well as monitoring of the emerging cluster of cases.
5. Focusing on clinical management in districts reporting higher deaths.