Coronavirus related deaths in India highest with 4,205 fatalities

New Delhi : India's daily death count has made another grim record with 4,205 people losing their lives in a single day on Wednesday. 3,48,421 fresh cases of coronavirus cases have been reported in last 24 hours, according to official data on government's website.

With fresh deaths, India's total death count is now above 2.5 lakh. The fresh surge in the number of coronavirus cases has taken the total number of active cases to 37,04,099. The positivity rate stood at 17.56 per cent.

More than 19 lakh samples were tested in last 24 hours. 24,46,674 vaccine doses were administered in a new record since India began the world's largest vaccine drive on January 16.

Experts have suggested vaccine as the only way out from pandemic, but many states in the nation have raised concerns over the shortage of it. Delhi and some other states are now considering importing vaccines from the global market.

Hit hard by the second wave, nearly 90 per cent of the country is witnessing a high positivity rate, the government said on Tuesday, stressing that 640 districts out of the 734 are above the national threshold level of five per cent.

Indian strain of China's virus has been the main reason behind coronavirus outbreak. The new strain has been found in more than 44 countries, the World Health Organization has said, days after labelling it as "a variant of concern". The variant was first found in India in October.