India records massive surge in Covid cases, reports 90,928 new infections in last 24 hours

New Delhi, Jan 06: India on Thursday logged as many as 90,928 new Covid-19 cases with the daily tally shooting up by 56.5%, according to Union health ministry's morning bulletin. The active caseload of COVID cases in the country now stands at 2,85,401.

As many as 4,82,876 people have succumbed to the pandemic and 325 deaths from the virus in the last 24 hours, according to the data updated at 8 am. While the cumulative recoveries from the virus stand at 3,43,41,009. The weekly positivity rate is 3.47 per cent; daily positivity rate is 6.43 per cent.

Positivity rate is the percentage of all Covid tests that are actually positive. It will be high if the number of positive tests is high, or if the number of total tests is low.

Maharashtra added 26,538 new cases to India's massive spike, followed by West Bengal, which reported 14,022 infections in a day.

The number of fresh Covid cases in Delhi nearly doubled within the last 24 hours, shooting up from 5481 to 10,665 in the biggest single-day spike since May 12. Eight deaths were also recorded -- the highest since June 26.

Meanwhile, amid an ongoing resurgence across the world, the global coronavirus caseload has topped 297 million, while the deaths have surged to more than 5.46 million and vaccinations to over 9.27 billion, according to Johns Hopkins University.

In its latest update on Thursday morning, the University's Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) revealed that the current global caseload and the death toll stood at 297,504,250 and 5,464,532, respectively, while the total number of vaccine doses administered has increased to 9,279,347,173.

The US continues to be the worst-hit country with the world's highest number of cases and deaths at 57,649,131 and 832,061, according to the CSSE. The second worst hit country in terms of cases is India (35,018,358 infections and 482,551 deaths), followed by Brazil (22,328,252 infections and 619,654 deaths).