DW BUREAU / shimla Himachal Pradesh on Tuesday reported 616 fresh coronavirus cases, the highest single day spike in recent weeks, officials said. With this, the state's COVID-19 tally climbed to 2,91,086, they added. So far, 4,129 people have died from the infection in the state since its outbreak. The highest 184 fresh cases were recorded in Kangra district, followed by 91 in Shimla, 89 in Mandi and 59 in Chamba, they added. The number of active cases has now climbed to 2,939. As many as 322 more people recovered from the disease, taking the number of recoveries to 2,83,999, the officials said. India logged 15,528 new coronavirus infections taking the total tally of COVID-19 cases to 4,37,83,062, while the active cases dipped to 1,43,654, according to the Union Health Ministry data updated on Tuesday. The active cases had been showing an upward trend since May 23. The death toll climbed to 5,25,785 with 25 new fatalities, the data updated at 8 am stated. The active cases comprise 0.33 per cent of the total infections, while the national COVID-19 recovery rate was recorded at 98.47 per cent, the ministry said. A decline of 610 cases has been recorded in the active COVID-19 caseload in a span of 24 hours. The daily positivity rate was recorded at 3.32 per cent and the weekly positivity rate at 4.57 per cent, according to the ministry. The number of people who have recuperated from the disease surged to 4,31,13,623 while the case fatality rate was recorded at 1.20 per cent. According to the ministry, 200.33 crore doses of Covid vaccine have been administered in the country so far under the nationwide COVID-19 vaccination drive. India's COVID-19 tally had crossed the 20-lakh mark on August 7, 2020, 30 lakh on August 23, 40 lakh on September 5 and 50 lakh on September 16. It went past 60 lakh on September 28, 70 lakh on October 11, crossed 80 lakh on October 29, 90 lakh on November 20 and surpassed the one-crore mark on December 19. The country crossed the grim milestone of two crore on May 4 and three crore on June 23 last year. It crossed the four-crore mark on January 25 this year. The 25 new fatalities include six from West Bengal, five from Kerala, three from Assam, two each from Bihar, Delhi and Punjab and one each from Chhattisgarh, Goa, Jammu and Kashmir, Odisha and Rajasthan. The mathematical modeling approach adopted by the WHO to project excess mortality estimates related to COVID-19 suffers from erroneous assumptions and is unscientific and India had registered its strong objection to this methodology, the government informed Parliament on Tuesday. India had objected to the 'one size fits all' approach adopted by the WHO as it might be true for smaller countries but cannot be applied to a huge and diverse country like India which had varied case trajectory across multiple states and at different periods during the pandemic, Minister of State for Health Bharati Pravin Pawar said in a written reply. She was responding to a question on the World Health Organization (WHO). (editor@dailyworld.in)