Coronavirus cases: India's tally nears 27 million with 196,427 fresh COVID-19 cases

New Delhi, May 25: Union health ministry on Tuesday said that India recorded 196,427 new cases of coronavirus cases in the last 24 hours, taking the total tally of cases to 26,948,874. The health ministry also showed that 3,511 deaths were also recorded in the same period, taking the nationwide toll to 3,07,231.

The number of active cases in the country further went down by 133,934, and reaching 25,867,782 the ministry's update at 8am showed.

Meanwhile, it can be seen that the number of deaths have hovered near the 4,000-mark for past several days, leading to concerns among experts and government officials.

The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) said a total of 33,25,94,176 samples were tested up to May 24 including 20,58,112 samples tested yesterday.

Several states have extended ongoing curbs in a bid to keep the COVID-19 infection from spreading. Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Karnataka, Telangana, Uttar Pradesh, Nagaland, Mizoram, Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir and Goa have re-imposed curfew-like restrictions after active coronavirus cases showed a decline.

Metropolitan cities like Mumbai and Delhi have seen signs of improvement in recent days, but there is a growing concern about smaller towns and rural areas where the coronavirus has made inroads.

Ten states including Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal accounted for 81.08 per cent of the coronavirus infections seen on Monday. Also, Tamil Nadu saw the maximum (35,483 new cases) followed by Maharashtra at 26,672.