India on Friday recorded 59,118 new COVID-19 cases, marking the highest single-day rise in cases since Oct. 23 and surpassing Thursday's figure of 53,476, according to the country's health ministry figures. With the detections of new cases, India's tally of total coronavirus cases now stands at 11,846,652. The country has been reporting more than 35,000 new cases daily for over a week in a recent surge in cases after they fell in January and February this year. The death toll also increased to 160,949 with 257 daily new fatalities. Health Minister Harsh Vardhan said the recent surge in the country's coronavirus cases is being closely monitored and strict enforcement of COVID protocols will be implemented to curb the pandemic. Official data shows prominent second waves of infection in six states — Maharashtra, Punjab, Kerala, Karnataka, Chhattisgarh, and Gujarat. The rise in cases comes as the country's top researchers announced that there are nearly 800 variants of concern present in the country. The Indian SARS-CoV-2 Consortium on Genomics —which has been carrying out genome sequencing and analysis of coronavirus strains since December — says 771 cases of variants of concern have been detected in India. Most of the cases are the coronavirus variant first identified in the UK, according to a statement from the Indian Ministry of Health on Wednesday. While the health ministry has not correlated these to the recent rise in cases, these variants have been primarily detected in states such as Punjab and Maharashtra, two states that the health ministry has called states of "grave concern," given that they are contributing to most of the nation's caseload. — Agencies
