The second wave of Covid-19 is moving ahead, with over 72,000 new cases reported in a day, and more than half of them are from Maharashtra. This trend threatens to nullify to an extent gains made by the vaccination drive which from Thursday also opens up to all people over 45 years of age.

Eight states – Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh, Karnataka, Punjab, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh – continue to show a steep rise in the daily new cases. As many as 72,330 new cases were registered in the 24 hours, to Thursday morning, according to the latest official bulletin. Some 84.61% of them were from these eight states.

Maharashtra has reported the highest daily new cases at 39,544, followed by Chhattisgarh (4,563) and Karnataka (4,225).

India’s total Active Caseload has reached 5,84,055. It now comprises 4.78% of the country’s total Positive Cases. A net incline of 31,489 cases recorded from the total active caseload in the last 24 hours.

Five states – Maharashtra, Karnataka, Kerala, Chhattisgarh and Punjab – cumulatively account for 78.9% of the total active cases in the country. Maharashtra alone accounts for more than 61% of the active caseload of the country.

Recoveries:
India’s cumulative recoveries stands at 1,14,74,683. The national Recovery Rate is 93.89%. As many as 40,382 recoveries were registered in the last 24 hours, while 459 deaths were reported in that period.

Six states account for 83.01% of the new deaths. Maharashtra saw the maximum casualties (227). Punjab follows with 55 daily deaths. Fifteen states/UTs have not reported any Covid-19 deaths in the last 24 hours. They are: Chandigarh, Jharkhand, Odisha, Ladakh (UT), D&D & D&N, Puducherry, Manipur, Tripura, Sikkim, Nagaland, Lakshadweep, Meghalaya, Mizoram, A&N Islands and Arunachal Pradesh.

Vaccination:
The next phase of Covid-19 vaccination for all people aged 45 years and above has commenced from Thursday.

More than 6.5 crore (6,51,17,896) vaccine doses have been administered through 10,86,241 sessions, as per the provisional report till 7 am Thursday. These include 82,60,293 healthcare workers (HCWs) (1st dose), 52,50,704 HCWs (2nd dose), 91,74,171 frontline workers (FLWs) (1st dose) and 39,45,796 FLWs (2nd dose), 78,36,667(1st dose) and 17,849 (2nd dose) beneficiaries aged more than 45 years with specific co-morbidities and 3,05,12,070 (1st dose) and 1,20,346 (2nd dose) beneficiaries aged more than 60 years.
 
As on Day 75 of the vaccination drive (March 31), 20,63,543 vaccine doses were given. Out of which, 17,94,166 beneficiaries were vaccinated across 39,484 sessions for 1st dose and 2,69,377 beneficiaries received 2nd dose of vaccine.

Testing:
The centre has been advising the states and UTs to increase the proportion of RT-PCR tests to more than 70% of the total tests.