DW BUREAU / Chandigarh Eighty more coronavirus cases surfaced in Chandigarh on Sunday, taking the infection count to 22,318 in the joint capital of Punjab and Haryana, according to a medical bulletin. Meanwhile, no coronavirus death was reported in the union territory, where the disease has claimed 355 lives so far. The number of active cases has risen to 710 on Sunday, the bulletin said, adding that 45 patients were discharged after they recovered from the infection, taking the number of cured persons to 21,253. A total of 2,66,685 samples have been taken for testing till now in the union territory, of which 2,43,399 tested negative while reports of 79 samples are awaited, as per the bulletin. New cases of coronavirus infection in India were recorded above 18,000 for the second consecutive day taking the country's tally of COVID-19 cases to 1,12,10,799, the Union Health Ministry said on Sunday. The active cases registered an increase for the fifth consecutive day. The COVID-19 active caseload increased to  1,84,523 which now comprises 1.65 per cent of the total infections. The recovery rate has dropped further to 96.95 per cent, the ministry data stated. A total of 18,711 new infections were registered in a day, while the death toll increased to 1,57,756 with 100  daily new fatalities, the data updated at 8 am showed.  On January 29, 18,855 new infections were recorded in a span of 24 hours. The number of people who have recuperated from the disease surged to 1,08,68,520 which translates to a national COVID-19 recovery rate of  96.95 per cent, while the case fatality rate stands at 1.41 per cent. India's COVID-19 tally had crossed the 20-lakh mark on August 7, 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. According to the ICMR,  22,14,30,507 samples have been tested up to March 6 with 7,37,830 samples being tested on Saturday. (editor@dailyworld.in)