Chandigarh: Many states have witnessed an upsurge in COVID-19 cases. Nation’s active caseload has jumped to 1,51,708 as 16,738 new cases have been recorded in the last 24 hours.

The latest upsurge in daily new cases have been reported in Maharashtra, Kerala, Punjab, Madhya Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat and Chhattisgarh.

Baffled with the latest upsurge, the campaign for vaccination is picking up. Meanwhile, new highly transmissible COVID strains have also been identified. Prof Jagat Ram, Director, PGI, while addressing healthcare workers at an open house session on Thursday, revealed that a new highly transmissible COVID strain has been observed in India and cautioned everyone to be more careful about it.

The PGI Director clarified that new strain and recent upsurged has clearly indicated that Covid-19 is very much here and has not gone away as is generally being presumed.

In Himachal COVID cases have so far under control and on Thursday, the state has recorded 42 new cases and now active cases in the state are 244. A total of 982 COVID patients have lost their lives.

So far 58,499 covid cases have been reported in Himachal and 57260 have fully recovered.

Vaccination drive in the state is also witnessing good response from the healthcare workers and on Thursday vaccination has crossed one lakh mark in the state.