As many as 62,714 people, 35,726 in Maharashtra alone, tested positive for Covid-19 during the last 24 hours, the highest since the second week of October last year.

With this, the total active caseload in the country crossed 4.86 lakh, according to data released by The Union Heath Ministry on Sunday.

During the same period, 21.54 lakh vaccinations were carried out across the country, helping India cross the milestone of 6 crore since January 16.

Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh, Karnataka, Punjab, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Tamil Nadu continued to show high daily new cases. They accounted for nearly 85 per cent cases reported on Saturday.

All these States and Kerala reported more than 2,000 new cases on Saturday. With 3,162 cases, Chhattisgarh overtook Punjab to become the State with the second highest number of cases. Even Karnataka reported more cases than Punjab.

The Centre on Saturday advised these high burden States/UTs to take stringent measures for containment of the surge.

Meanwhile, the number daily deaths too went up to more than 300 for the first this year. On Saturday, as many as 312 people succumbed to the infection, taking the death toll from Covid since the beginning of the pandemic last year to 1,61,552.

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