Breaking all previous records, Punjab on Friday witnessed the steepest single-day spike with 3,176 fresh cases of the novel corornavirus, pushing the State’s Covid-19 tally to 2,26,059. This is the highest number of infections reported in the single day. The previous high was 2848 reported on September 17, the previous year.

That was not all! The state also registered the highest number of casualties in a single day since October last, with 59 deaths in the past 24 hours. Punjab had reported highest number of fatalities on September 2 with 106.

Nearly half of the Friday’s deaths were reported from just two districts — with Jalandhar and Hoshiarpur registering 14 deaths each. Besides, Ludhiana reported five deaths; followed by four each from Amritsar, Bathinda, Kapurthala, and Nawanshahr; three from Patiala; two from Sangrur; and one each from Faridkot, Gurdaspur, SAS Nagar (Mohali), Ropar, and Tarn Taran.

With 59 fatalities, the state’s Covid-19 death toll has reached 6,576 — at the case fatality rate of 2.91 per cent.

As the State is witnessing a steady surge in cases every day, the number of active cases is also growing. In March alone, the active cases has reached 22,652 from 4,853 reported on March 1 — recording an increase of 366.76 per cent.

Among the districts, Jalandhar reported a maximum of 494 cases, followed by Mohali with 409 cases, Ludhiana with 395, Kapurthala 327, Amritsar with 304, Patiala with 285, Hoshiarpur with 202, besides 144 fresh cases in Gurdaspur, 92 in Nawanshahr, 79 in Bathinda, 66 in Ropar, 54 in Tarn Taran, 48 in Fatehgarh Sahib, 46 each in Faridkot and Sangrur, 41 in Fazilka, 34 in Moga, 37 in Muktsar, 26 in Mansa, 12 in Barnala and three in Pathankot.

A total of 1,816 coronavirus patients were discharged after recovering from the infection, taking the number of recoveries to 1,96,831—at a recovery rate of

Punjab has five districts among the 15 in the country with the highest number of Covid-19 cases. Mohali, Jalandhar, Ludhiana, Patiala, and Amritsar are coronavirus hotspots of the state and the country.

The number of containment zones in the State has increased from six to eight in a single day while the number of micro containment zones has decreased from 73 on Thursday to 71 on Friday, as per the health bulletin.

Over 39,000 tests to detect the disease were conducted in the state on Friday, which is lesser than those done a day before.

According to the bulletin, seven new patients were admitted to the intensive care units (ICU) of various hospitals and four new patients were put on ventilator support on Friday.

A total of 20,445 beneficiaries in the age group of 60-plus and 45-plus with co-morbidities were given their first dose. So far, 3,12,744 recipients in this category have been vaccinated in the State.

A total of 2,027 healthcare workers received their first dose of Covid vaccine, taking the overall number of healthcare workers vaccinated to 1,35,183 while 427 health workers were given their second dose.

So far, 62,682 healthcare workers have been given the second dose.

In the frontline workers category, 6,282 received their first dose and 1,502 got their second dose.