Over the last week, India recorded the highest number of new COVID-19 cases since mid of December 2020. The country recorded a steep rise of 33% in the fresh cases over the past week. Deaths related to COVID-19 have also increased by 28% to a six-week high. There were 876 fatalities during the week of March 8-15.

This represents the sharpest weekly spike in COVID cases since July last year. Talking of absolute numbers, close to 1.56 lakh COVID-19 cases were reported over the past seven days, representing the highest number in 12 weeks since December 14-20. The weekly case count has increased two-fold in the past four weeks since the second wave of the pandemic started in the country… (ET Healthworld – TOI.in, March 15, 2021)