Coronavirus live updates: More than 27 lakh vaccinated on day 1 of Tika Utsav

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The tally of active cases in the country has risen by more than five times in 28 days, since the number crossed 2 lakh on March 12. Active cases are calculated by subtracting the number of recoveries from the count of fresh cases. The actual active case count may be slightly less than the numbers given here because of migrations etc.

Cases continued to rise in Haryana (2,994, highest since November 20), Andhra Pradesh (2,765, highest since November 3), Telangana (2,478, September 10), Bihar (2,174, August 23), Jharkhand (1,925, September 8), Odisha (1,282, November 8), Himachal Pradesh (662, December 10), Chandigarh (422, September 13) and Ladakh (91, December 6).

13 other states recorded their highest daily case tallies in 2021, including Delhi, which reported Delhi 8,521 new cases, close to the city's highest count of 8,593 reported on November 11. Karnataka posted 7,955 fresh cases, the highest since October 15. These included 5,576 cases from Bengaluru Urban alone. Tamil Nadu's tally climbed to 5,441, the most since October 7, while Bengal saw infections rise by 3,648, the highest count since November 18.

Uttar Pradesh counted 9,695 new cases, a sharp rise from Thursday's record high of 8,490. Madhya Pradesh posted 4,882 cases, another new high, while Gujarat detected 4,541 new infections. Rajasthan tally rose to 3,970 while Punjab recorded another peak at 3,459.

Cases were also surging in other parts of the country, with as many as six states registering their biggest single-day surge in infections.

Maharashtra continued to post by far the highest number of fresh cases at 58,993 on Friday, the second highest count recorded in the state. Mumbai added 9,202 cases to its tally.

Meanwhile, fresh cases continued to rise in the country, with 1,45,089 new infections being detected on Friday. The day's death toll from the virus stood at 774.

The previous highest tally of active cases in India was 10,26,945 recorded on September 17, at the peak of the first Covid wave. In tandem with the unprecedented growth in infections, active cases have shown the fastest-ever increase in recent days, rising by more than 4.3 lakh in the last eight days alone.

India now has more active cases of the coronavirus than at any other time since the beginning of the pandemic. The country's active case count crossed the 1-million mark before settling to an all-time high of around 10,46,000 on Friday, even as fresh cases surged to another new peak of over 1.45 lakh.