COVID-19: India records 16,738 fresh cases in last 24 hours

New Delhi: The daily rise in coronavirus infections in India was recorded above 15,000 after nearly a month taking the country's total tally of COVID-19 cases to 1,10,46,914, according to the Union Health Ministry data updated on Thursday.

A total 16,738 infections were reported in a day, while the death toll increased to 1,56,705 with 138 daily new fatalities, the data updated at 8 am showed.

On January 29, 18,855 new infections were recorded in a span of 24 hours after which it stayed below 15,000.

The daily deaths were registered above 130 after a gap of 26 days.

The number of people who have recuperated from the disease surged to 1,07,38,501 which translates to a national COVID-19 recovery rate of 97.21 per cent and the case fatality rate stands at 1.42 per cent.

The active caseload increased to 1,51,708 which comprises 1.37 per cent of the total infections, the data stated.

India's COVID-19 tally had crossed the 20-lakh mark on August 7, 30 lakh on August 23, 40 lakh on September 5 and 50 lakh on September 16.It went past 60 lakh on September 28, 70 lakh on October 11, crossed 80 lakh on October 29, 90 lakh on November 20 and surpassed the one-crore mark on December 19.

According to the ICMR, 21,38,29,658 samples have been tested up to February 24 with 7,93,383 samples being tested on Wednesday.