The northern state of Punjab is now turning into a COVID19 hotspot with the State reporting as many as 1,043 new cases and 17 deaths in the last 24 hours. This is the second time this month that the state reported more than 1,000 cases in a day. 

On March 4, Punjab had reported 1,071 COVID19 cases after a gap of five months. Faced with rising trend of cases in Punjab, night curfew had been imposed in four districts of Jalandhar, SBS Nagar, Hoshiarpur and Kapurthala on Saturday.

The centre has already rushed high level teams to Punjab besides Maharashtra and Kerala and and told all the eight states witnessing high COVID19 positivity rates to up their game on testing and tracking.

Meanwhile, union health ministry on Monday said that Maharashtra, Kerala, Punjab, Karnataka, Gujarat and Tamil Nadu have been reporting a surge in the COVID daily new cases and now cumulatively account for 86.25 per cent of the new cases reported in the past 24 hours. In India, 18,599 new cases were registered in the last 24 hours.

Maharashtra has reported the highest daily new cases at 11,141, followed by Kerala with 2,100 while Punjab reported 1,043 new cases.

India’s total Active Caseload has reached 1,88,747 today. India’s present active caseload now stands at 1.68 per cent   of India’s total Positive Cases.

The cumulative tests conducted in the country have surpassed 22 crores (22,19,68,271). The national cumulative positivity rate currently stands at 5.06 per cent.

More than 2.09 crore (2,09,89,010) vaccine doses have been administered through 3,76,633 sessions, as per the provisional report till 7 am on Monday.

These include 69,85,911HCWs (1st dose), 35,47,548 HCWs (2nd dose), 66,09,537 FLWs (1st dose) and 2,13,559 FLWs (2nd Dose), 4,80,661 beneficiaries aged more than 45 years with specific co-morbidities (1st Dose) and 31,51,794 beneficiaries aged more than 60 years.

97 DEATHS

Seven States account for 87.63 per cent   of the new deaths. Maharashtra saw the maximum casualties (38). Punjab follows with 17 daily deaths and Kerala reported13 deaths in the last 24 hours.

Meanwhile, eighteen States/UTs have not reported any COVID19 deaths in the last 24 hours. These are A&N Islands, Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Chandigarh, D&D & D&N, Goa, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Ladakh (UT),Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Odisha, Puducherry, Rajasthan, Sikkim, Tripura.

 DELHI VACCINATIONS

Meanwhile, as many as  35,738 persons were vaccinated on Monday. While the number of people above 60 years was 20,123, those between 45-59 years stood at 2,710.

The number of people who got their first dose stood at 28,422 and those who got their second dose stood at 7,316.

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