India recorded an all-time high of 1,03,558 Covid-19 cases in a single day, pushing the nationwide tally to 1,25,89,067 on Monday, according to the Union Health Ministry data.
This single-day rise in cases surpassed the earlier peak of 97,894 infections reported on September 17 last year, making it the highest since the pandemic began in India. The active caseload was at its lowest at 1, 35,926 on February 12.
Health authorities in Punjab reported 51 coronavirus deaths and 7,083 fresh cases in the state.
“Since January 16, nearly 10.63 lakh beneficiaries, including healthcare workers, frontline warriors and people above the age of 45, have been administered vaccine in the state. Of them, nearly 1.3 lakh beneficiaries were co-morbid with diabetes, hypertension and even serious diseases like cancer. Also, 1,21,826 beneficiaries have already taken their second dose of the vaccine cycle. However, only 89 of them experienced minor side effects and complained of fever, body ache, dizziness, headache while no one required hospitalisation due to severe adversities post-vaccination,” said Punjab nodal officer for Covid-19 Dr Rajesh Bhaskar.
With the active cases increasing rapidly in Punjab amid the second wave of the pandemic, 14% of government and private hospital beds reserved for Covid-19 patients are occupied, data available with the state health department shows. As per health experts, more severe cases with late detection of virus are being reported in the state as a result of which, hospitalisation of patients has also increased in the past few days.
In Chandigarh, hospitals have already surpassed 50% occupancy and ICU beds have been exhausted in some. According to doctors, the severity of the disease in Covid patients coming to the hospital is higher this time as compared to the previous wave. At the PGI, there is a capacity of 300 beds for Covid patients of which 178 have been occupied. Of the total Covid beds, 50 are for ICU and all of these are currently occupied by critically ill patients.
Doctors have also been urging the authorities to open Covid care centres to ease the burden on hospitals. The city recorded 341 Covid cases on Sunday, taking the number of active cases to 3,150. Mohali reported 329 fresh cases, taking the case load to 28,210 and Panchkula reported 200 fresh Covid cases in the highest single-day surge so far, taking the overall tally to 13,653.
