DW BUREAU / chandigarh Punjab recorded the highest single-day spike of 2,464 coronavirus cases, taking the state's infection tally to 72,143 on Thursday, according to a medical bulletin. On Wednesday, the state had seen a reported 2,137 infections. Meanwhile, the death toll due to COVID-19 in Punjab rose to 2,149 with 88 more fatalities, the bulletin said. It said 16 deaths were reported from Amritsar, 14 from Mohali, 11 from Ludhiana, nine from Jalandhar, seven from Ferozepur, five from Rupnagar, four each from Moga, Kapurthala and Patiala, three from Fatehgarh Sahib and Gurdaspur, two from Hoshiarpur, Sangrur and one each from Faridkot, Mansa, Muktsar and Tarn Taran. The places which reported new cases included Mohali (307), Amritsar (295), Jalandhar (277), Bathinda (202), Pathankot (195), Gurdaspur (156), Patiala (144), Hoshiarpur (141), Ludhiana (120) and Kapurthala (91), it said. There are 18,088 active COVID-19 cases in the state now. A total of 1,348 coronavirus patients were discharged after recovering from the infection. So far 51,906 people have recovered of the COVID-19 infection, the bulletin said. It said 79 critical patients are on ventilator support while 544 are on oxygen support. A total of 12,98,969 samples have been collected for testing so far in the state, the bulletin said. The country saw a record single-day spike of 95,735 infections and 1,172 fatalities taking India's COVID-19 caseload past 44 lakh and death toll to 75,062, while recoveries surged to 34,71,783 on Thursday, according to the Union Health Ministry. The total cases mounted to 44,65,863, the ministry data updated at 8 am showed. The fatality rate has dropped to 1.68 per cent while the recovery rate was at 77.74 per cent. There are 9,19,018 active cases in the country which comprise 20.58 per cent of the total caseload, the data stated. India's COVID-19 tally had crossed the 20 lakh mark on August 7, it went past 30 lakh on August 23 and 40 lakh on September 5. According to ICMR, a total of 5,29,34,433 samples have been tested up to September 9 with 11,29,756 samples being tested on Wednesday. The 1,172 new deaths included 380 from Maharashtra, 128 from Karnataka, 74 from Andhra Pradesh, 71 from Punjab, 70 from Chhattisgarh, 65 each from Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh, 53 from West Bengal and 31 from Madhya Pradesh. The total 75,062 deaths included 27,787 from Maharashtra, 8,090 from Tamil Nadu, 6,808 from Karnataka, 4,638 in Delhi, 4,634 in Andhra Pradesh, 4,112 in Uttar Pradesh, 3,730 in West Bengal, 3,149 in Gujarat and 2,061 in Punjab, 1,640 from Madhya Pradesh, 1,178 from Rajasthan and 927 from Telangana. The Health Ministry stressed that more than 70 per cent of the deaths occurred due to comorbidities. (editor@dailyworld.in)