June 17, 2022: India reported over 12,000 fresh COVID-19 cases for the second day in a row by logging in 12,847 cases in the last 24 hours, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare informed on Friday.

After a gap of more than three months, India witnessed an uptick in the number of COVID-19 cases as the country recorded as many as 12,213 fresh COVID-19 infections on Thursday. On February 26 this year, India recorded 11,499 COVID-19 cases. On Wednesday, India had already reported 8,641 fresh cases of the virus.

With these figures, the country's COVID-19 tally today rose to 4,32,70,577. India's active COVID-19 caseload currently stands at 63,063, which accounts for 0.15 per cent of the total cases. The top five states that registered the maximum number of fresh COVID-19 cases are Maharashtra with 4,255 cases, followed by Kerala with 3,419 cases, Delhi with 1,323 cases, Karnataka with 833 cases and Haryana with 625 cases.

A total of 81.37 per cent of the new COVID-19 cases have been reported from these five states, with Maharashtra alone responsible for 33.12 per cent of the new cases. With 14 new COVID-related fatalities on Friday, the country's total number of deaths rose to 5,24,817.

The government data today informed that as many as 7,985 recoveries were registered in the last 24 hours thereby increasing the total recoveries to 4,26,82,697. The recovery rate currently stands at 98.64 per cent. Of the 5,19,903 COVID-19 tests conducted in the last 24 hours, a daily positivity rate of 2.47 per cent was observed.

On the COVID-19 vaccination front, 195.84 crore COVID-19 vaccine doses have been administered so far under a nationwide vaccination drive. Amid the recent surge reported in COVID-19 cases across the country, the Health Ministry of India on June 9 urged States and Union Territories to not lower their guards and strictly maintain the COVID appropriate behaviour. Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan on Thursday wrote a letter to States/UTs and directed them to ramp up RT-PCR testing, surveillance, clinical management, vaccination, COVID-19 protocols and take timely pre-emptive actions. Bhushan also advised the government to follow a 'five-fold Strategy'. (ANI)