New Delhi: The Covid- 19 pandemic unprecedented surge in the country saw the number of fresh cases as well as deaths on Thursday. The Covid- 19 new cases touch record highs, new infection during the day went past 66K while fatalities touched 1008.

Fresh cases rose to 66, 037 beating the previous single day high of 65, 410 (on August 8^th) as for the data connected from State Governments. The country’s total caseload 24 lakhs, this was the second time that daily fatalities crossed 1 K. Thursday’s count was just higher than 1008 deaths recorded on August 9^th. Meanwhile, India now has the second highest count of active Covid- 19 cases in the world after the US, according to the latest data from Johns Hopkins University. The number of active cases in India has gone past the count in Brazil after that country showed a sharp drop in active Covid- 19 cases as per Johns Hopkins data.

Brazil had the second highest number of active cases till a few days ago. According to the Johns Hopkins website on Thursday afternoon showed India’s active cases at 653, 622 while the corresponding number in Brazil was 554, 356. The US had by far the most active cases in the world at 32, 76, 125. Late Thursday night India’s Covid- 19 active cases had risen to nearly 6.64 lakhs. Thursday’s surge in deaths was led by Maharashtra reported 413 Covid- 19 fatalities, its highest toll for a day so far, taking the State’s total deaths to 19, 063.

Earlier, the highest deaths recorded in a day were 390 on August 9^th. The State also continued to add a large number of new cases (11, 813) taking its total cases to 560, 126 by breaching the 5.5 lakh mark. Mumbai added 1, 200 or 10.1 % of the cases for Thursday. Pune division recorded the highest cases (3, 034) and deaths (118) in the state. While none of the four worst hit states, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka reported a record high jump in cases on Thursday, the cumulative count touched an all time high on account of sharp rises in several other states.

The most worry some spike was in Assam, which reported as many as 4, 593 cases on Thursday. West Bengal recorded 2, 997 cases, Odisha 1, 981, Rajasthan 1, 264, Kerala 1, 564, Madhya Pradesh, 1, 014 and Goa 570 on Thursday.