With 445 Covid-19 deaths in biggest single-day jump, India’s toll mounts to 13,699; tally over 4.25 lakh

India has 425,282 cases of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) after 14,821 infections and 445 deaths, the highest so far, were reported in the last 24 hours, the Union health ministry data showed on Monday.

There are 174,384 active Covid-19 cases and 237,195 people have been cured of the disease, according to the health ministry’s dashboard. The country’s death toll stands at 13,699.

Amid the mounting infection tally, the recovery rate also went up a bit to 55.77% after Sunday’s 55.48%. Recovery rate is the ratio of the number of patients recovered to the number of patients infected.

Follow latest updates on coronavirus here

As the government chalked out a strategy to contain the coronavirus outbreak in Delhi and Mumbai, which have seen a rising number of Covid-19 cases in the past week, the national capital reported 59,746 infections so far. There have been 2,175 fatalities in Delhi, data showed.

Mumbai has reported 66,488 infections so far and its death toll has gone up to 3,671 as 132,075 people have contracted the disease and 6,170 have succumbed across Maharashtra, the worst-hit state.

Union home minister Amit Shah has held several meetings with Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, his deputy Manish Sisodia, lieutenant governor Anil Baijal, Union health minister Harsh Vardhan and senior officials to discuss the action plan and augment the city’s health care infrastructure amid the pandemic.

Click here for complete coronavirus coverage

Authorities in Delhi have decided to ramp up containment and tracing efforts, widening the scope of detecting infections, intensifying social distancing and surveillance and inclusion of epidemiologists at the district level to augment the health care efforts.

In Mumbai, the focus has shifted to the city’s suburbs to check the rise in the number of Covid-19 cases in areas such as Mulund, Bhandup, Malad, Andheri, Borivli, Kandivli and Dahisar.

Tamil Nadu, another state which has added to the country’s increasing caseload, is slightly behind Delhi in terms of the number of Covid-19 cases 59,377 and 757 deaths.

Globally, 8.9 million people have contracted the respiratory disease and 467,671 have died so far.