In Maharashtra, the State Government yesterday further reduced the rates for RT-PCR tests conducted by private laboratories for COVID-19 following the testing kit production cost falling after easing of lockdown norms.

According to the decision, the charges for picking test samples from collection sites have been reduced to 1,200 rupees from 1,900 rupees which was fixed last month. Collecting samples from kiosks, COVID-19 care centres, hospitals, clinics, quarantine centres of laboratories will now cost 1,600 rupees as against 2,200 rupees earlier.

The government said that the fees for collecting patient samples from his/her residence, their transport, testing and reporting of samples has been slashed to 2,000 rupees from 2,500 rupees. The government said, the revised charges are inclusive of all taxes.

The government took the step after a committee set up by it to decide the rates charged by private laboratories submitted its report.

In Delhi the other worst hit Metro, , the recovery rate of COVID patients stands at 87 per cent today. The city recorded recovery of 2,411 patients in the last 24 hours taking the total number of recovered patients till date, to one lakh 68384.

With increased testing, the city has achieved the remarkable mark of conducting 94 919 Corona tests per million of its population. A total of 2077 new confirmed cases of Corona virus were reported in the National Capital during the last twenty four hours. With this, the total number of COVID cases in the city has reached to 193526.

The Delhi Government confirmed that 32 deaths were reported in the last 24 hours, taking the total to 4599. The total number of active Corona cases in the city now stands at 20543.

Meanwhile, nationally nearly 33,24000 people in the country have recovered from the viral pandemic. In the last 24 hours, India witnessed one of the highest single day COVID-19 recoveries of over 73,500 patients.

The overall recovery rate has also maintained its upward trend and has now reached at 77.65 per cent.

The Health Ministry has said, the constant increase in recoveries have ensured that the actual caseload has reduced and currently comprises only 20.65 per cent of the total positive cases. The number of recovered patients has overtaken the active cases by nearly 3.8 times.

The Ministry said, the number of recovered patients in the country has grown over three times in a span of one month.

The Health Ministryalso said that the sustained high recovery rate is fuelled by 9 states and union territories reporting a recovery rate of over 80 per cent. These states include Bihar, Tamil Nadu, Delhi, West Bengal, Rajasthan and Gujarat among others.

The ministry has informed that aggressive measures towards early identification, prompt and effective treatment and enhanced clinical skills of ICU doctors have actively led to progressive enhancement of India's total recoveries. It said high levels of recovery is being reported from various States and UTs and almost 60 per cent of the total recovered cases are pooled in by the 5 States of Maharashtra , Andhra Pradesh , Karnataka , Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu.

Effective implementation of 'Test, Track and Treat' approach has led to higher recoveries and lower fatality. Currently, India’s Case Fatality Rate is at 1.70 per cent.

In the last 24 hours, 75,809 new cases have been reported taking the total number of positive cases to 42,80,423.

Presently, the total number of active corona cases in the country is 8 lakh 83 thousand and 697. In the last 24 hours, one thousand 133 deaths have been reported taking the toll to 72 thousand 775.

India has achieved the milestone of testing over five crore COVID samples. With nearly 11 lakh tests done in last 24 hours by around 1668 labs across the country, so far five crore six lakh 50 thousand 128 tests have been successfully conducted.

Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and Madhya Pradesh have recorded a positivity rate even lower than five per cent. The Health Ministry said that high levels of testing sustained over a period of time in widespread areas has enabled early diagnosis of cases and facilitated seamless isolation and hospitalization. It said, this has also led to low mortality rate.