India witnesses biggest spike ever in Coronavirus cases, total tally crosses 23K

The number of deaths rose to 723 with 37 more people succumbing to Coronavirus in the last 24 hours, as per data released by the Union Home Ministry.

However, infusing a ray of hope, the Union Home Ministry also informed that there have been no new cases in 80 districts for the last 14 days. This suggests that the chain of infection has been broken in these places.

"We should see that the green zone districts maintain the status of no new cases and also, new districts get added into this category," senior health ministry official Lav Aggarwal said in his daily press briefing.

The government also informed that a total of 4,748 people have recovered from COVID-19 so far, which takes the share of recovered patients to 20.57 per cent of the total active cases - also the highest as of date.

On Monday the Ministry informed that the doubling rate had improved from 3.4 days before lockdown to 7.5 days.

Maharashtra remains the worst-hit state, where the highest number of cases, being 6,430, has been reported keeping the coalition-led state government restless on how to combat the crisis.

Gujarat, which is the home state of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, is picking up the cases fast as the western part of the country has registered 2,624 cases followed by the national capital Delhi (2,376).

Though Kerala, the Left-ruled southern state, had reported the first COVID-19 case in India followed by a steep rise in positive cases, has minimized the infection with aggressive testing.

The state has reported 447 cases with 324 of them being recovered.

As 1.3 billion people of the country are observing phase 2 of lockdown, the growth rate of Coronavirus is steady so far. However, the humanitarian crisis has been on the rise with daily-wage workers complaining of starvation.

The lockdown called by Prime Minister Narendra Modi for 21-days was increased later with the steep rise in the Coronavirus cases back then.

Though the central government has offered some relaxations, the country by and large is under lockdown as of now leading to economic instability.

Meanwhile, Modi, who preferred to save the lives of millions than concentrating more on economy, is scheduled to meet all Chief Ministers on Mar 27, possibly to discuss the Coronavirus situation and an exit from the lockdown mode.