In the highest single-day spike, India reported 2,61,500 fresh Covid cases in the last 24 hours. According to the Health Ministry data released on Sunday, this has pushed the country's overall tally to 1,47,88,109.

Continuing with its streak, this will be the fourth consecutive day that India has reported more than two lakh Covid cases. On Saturday, the country recorded 2,34,692 cases. Similarly, on Thursday, India reported 2,00,739 and on Friday it registered 2,17,353 cases.

Apart from this, 1,501 people lost their lives to the virus in the past 24 hours. This takes India's death toll to 1,77,150 so far. The daily active cases in the country rose to 18,01,316.

However, 1,38,423 patients recovered during the same period, and India's recoveries stands at 1,28,09,643, with a recovery rate of 86.62 per cent.

According to the data by Health Ministry, a total of 15,66,394 samples were tested in the last 24 hours. The government data also revealed that a total of 26,84,956 people were also vaccinated in the same period, taking the total inoculation count to 12,26,22,590.

Union Health Minister, Dr Harsh Vardhan, on Saturday commented on the alarmingly steep rise of daily active cases and deaths in the country. He stated how the widening gap between the daily new cases and the daily recoveries reflects that the infection is spreading at a much faster rate than recoveries.

(With inputs from IANS)