Coronavirus: India records more than 48,000 fresh cases of COVID-19 in last 24 hours; 768 dead

New Delhi, July 29: Union Health Ministry on Wednesday said India's tally of the coronavirus disease now more than 1.53 million after 48,513 fresh cases and 768 deaths were reported in the last 24 hours.

According to the health ministry's dashboard, the country's recovery rate has seen a sharp increase from around 53 per cent in mid-June to more than 64.50 per cent till date. With 35,286 patients discharged in the last 24 hours, the recoveries stand at 9,88,029.

The gap between the recovered and active cases has also been persistently increasing-there were 5,09,447 infections as of Wednesday, data showed.

Meanwhile, Karnataka, which on Monday crossed 1,00,000 total cases, in 74 days since its 1,000th case has 1,01,465 confirmed cases, 30,000 cases more than Delhi and Tamil Nadu in the same time period.

Tamil Nadu and Delhi, the second and third worst-hit regions in the country after Maharashtra, had 67,468 and 66,602 cases respectively by Day 74.

Also, Mumbai reported its lowest tally in three months with 700 new cases. This would be the lowest since around the first week of May.

The survey will be conducted in the first five days of August to collect blood from around 20,000 people, health officials have said. The results are expected by mid-August.

The first survey of this sort showed 22.86 pre cent of those tested had the antibodies.