Coronavirus: India records 74,442 new COVID-19 cases, 903 deaths in last 24 hours

New Delhi, Oct 05: Union health ministry on Monday said that India, the second worst-hit country by the coronavirus in the world, recorded 74,442 new infections and 903 deaths in the last 24 hours, which has taken its tally to over 6.6 million.

According to reports, there are 6,623,815 cases of the coronavirus disease in the country now, including 934,427 active cases and 102,685 deaths. The country as been posting high level of daily recoveries for the past few weeks and 76,737 recoveries were registered between Sunday and Monday morning. Now 5,586,703 people have been cured so far taking the national recovery rate to 84.34 per cent.

On Sunday, India's total recoveries had crossed 55,09,966 with 75.44 per cent of the newly recovered cases recorded from 10 states and Union territories. Maharashtra, which has the highest number of active cases in the country, has also contributed the highest number to the newly-recovered cases followed by Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh.

The government also said that 10 states and Union territories account for 77.11 per cent of the active cases in the country. The percent contribution of active cases to the positive caseload of the country reduced to 14.32 per cent on Sunday, it added.

Out of the total new cases, 78 per cent were concentrated in 10 states and Union territories with Maharashtra contributing more than 14,000 to the new cases. Karnataka and Kerala reported 9,886 and 7834 new cases, respectively, according to government data.

India has posted high daily testing numbers over Thursday, Friday and Saturday with 10,97,947, 11,32,675 and 11,42,131 tests respectively "despite the extended weekend", the government said.

"There has been an exponential rise in India's daily testing capacities. More than 15 lakhs tests can be conducted every day. An average of 11.5 lakh tests were done on a daily basis during the past ten days," it added.