The death toll due to Covid-19 rose to 4,531 and the number of cases climbed to 1,58,333 in the country, registering an increase of 194 deaths and 6,566 cases in the last 24 hours since 8am, the Union health ministry said.

The number of active Covid-19 cases stand at 86,110 while 67,691 people have recovered and one patient has migrated, it said.

'Thus, around 42.75 per cent patients have recovered so far,' a senior health ministry official said.

The total confirmed cases includes foreigners.

Of the 194 deaths reported since Wednesday morning, 105 were in Maharashtra, 23 in Gujarat, 15 in Delhi, 12 in Uttar Pradesh, eight in Madhya Pradesh, six each in Tamil Nadu, Telangana and West Bengal, three each in Karnataka and Rajasthan, two each in Bihar and Jammu and Kashmir and one each in Andhra Pradesh, Haryana and Kerala.

Of the total 4,531 fatalities, Maharashtra tops the tally with 1,897 deaths followed by Gujarat with 938 deaths, Madhya Pradesh with 313, Delhi with 303, West Bengal with 289, Uttar Pradesh with 182, Rajasthan with 173,Tamil Nadu with 133, Telangana with 63 and Andhra Pradesh with 58 deaths.

The death toll reached 47 in Karnataka and 40 in Punjab. Jammu and Kashmir has reported 26 fatalities due to the disease, Haryana has 18 deaths while Bihar has registered 15. Odisha and Kerala have reported seven deaths each, Himachal Pradesh five, whilw Jharkhand, Uttarakhand, Chandigarh and Assam have recorded four deaths each so far.

Meghalaya has reported one Covid-19 fatality so far, according to the ministry data.

According to the ministry's website, more than 70 per cent of the deaths are due to comorbidities.

According to the Health Ministry data updated in the morning, the highest number of confirmed cases in the country are from Maharashtra at 56,948 followed by Tamil Nadu at 18,545, Delhi at 15,257, Gujarat at 15,195,, Rajasthan at 7,703, Madhya Pradesh at 7,261 and Uttar Pradesh at 6,991.

The number of Covid-19 cases has gone up to 4,192 in West Bengal, 3,171 in Andhra Pradesh and 3,061 in Bihar.

It has risen to 2,418 in Karnataka, 2,139 in Punjab, 2,098 in Telangana, 1,921 in Jammu and Kashmir and 1,593 in Odisha.

Haryana has reported 1,381 coronavirus cases so far while Kerala has 1,004 cases. A total of 781 people have been infected with the virus in Assam and 448 in Jharkhand.

Uttarakhand has 469, Chhattisgarh has 369, Chandigarh has reported 279 cases, Himachal Pradesh has 273, Tripura has 230 and Goa has registered 68 cases so far.

Ladakh has reported 53 Covid-19 cases, Puducherry has 46 instances of infection, Manipur has 44, while Andaman and Nicobar Islands has registered 33 cases.

Meghalaya has registered 20. Nagaland has reported four infections, Dadar and Nagar Haveli and Arunachal Pradesh have reported two cases each while Mizoram and Sikkim have reported a case each till how.

'4,332 cases are being reassigned to states,' the ministry said on its website adding 'Our figures are being reconciled with the ICMR.'

State-wise distribution is subject to further verification and reconciliation, it said.

Cabinet secy calls meeting with municipal commissioners, DMs of 13 cities

Cabinet secretary Rajiv Gauba on Thursday will hold a meeting with municipal commissioners and district magistrates of 13 Covid-19 hit cities in the country that include Mumbai, Delhi, Calcutta and Chennai, officials said.

Chief secretaries and principal secretaries (health) of the states concerned will also attend the meeting to be held through video conference.

Municipal commissioners of Mumbai, Chennai, Delhi/New Delhi, Ahmadabad, Thane, Pune, Hyderabad, Calcutta/Howrah, Indore (Madhya Pradesh), Jaipur, Jodhpur, Chengalpattu (Tamil Nadu) and Thiruvallur (Tamil Nadu) will attend the meeting, a Home Ministry official said.

District magistrates or collectors of the districts concerned will also join the meeting, the official said.

AIIMS Jodhpur nursing staff protest

The nursing staff of the AIIMS Jodhpur has been sporting black arm bands to protest alleged denial of treatment to the pregnant wife of a senior nursing officer at the hospital as they hailed from a coronavirus hotspot zone in the city.

The nursing staff of the institution had last week submitted a memorandum to the director of AIIMS demanding an inquiry into the matter and stern action against the doctor, who allegedly refused treatment.

It has been a week since we had submitted a memorandum to the administration for action, but no action has yet been taken. All of us have been working with black straps around our arms , said the secretary of Nursing Officers' Welfare Association of AIIMS, Gulab Choudhary.

Superintendent of AIIMS, Arvind Sinha, said that they have received the complaint and have been looking into it.

'We have received their complaint and have been looking into it. It was nothing but a matter of miscommunication , said Sinha.

Senior Nursing officer of AIIMS, Naresh Kumar Swami, had taken his 11 weeks pregnant wife to the emergency department of AIIMS on May 17.

IndiGo passenger tests positive

An asymptomatic passenger who took an IndiGo Bengaluru-Madurai flight on Wednesday was found positive for Covid-19 during mandatory testing on the same day at a quarantine facility in Madurai, the airline said on Thursday.

Domestic passenger flights resumed in India from Monday. Since then, five passengers of three different airlines have tested positive for COVID-19.

'An asymptomatic passenger who travelled on IndiGo on 6E 7214 from Bangalore to Madurai on May 27, 2020 was discovered to be COVID-19 positive during the mandatory testing at the quarantine facility in Madurai on 27th May,' the airline said in its statement.

The passenger had observed all precautionary measures, including wearing face mask, face shield and gloves, like other passengers on the aircraft, IndiGo added.

Nursing staff stage a protest against AIIMS hospital, in Jodhpur, Wednesday, May 27, 2020 PTI

Sambit Patra hospitalised

BJP national spokesperson Sambit Patra has been admitted to a private hospital in Gurgaon after he showed symptoms of Covid-19, sources said.

He is admitted to the Medanta hospital in Gurgaon, hospital sources said on Thursday.

The BJP leader has shown symptoms of Covid-19, a source said.

Karnataka suspends air travel from 5 states citing spike in cases

The Karnataka government on Thursday decided to suspend air travel from Maharashtra, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, saying a large number of people arriving from these states have tested positive for Covid-19.

The decision to stop flights from these states, which have high number of coronavirus cases, for the time being was taken at a cabinet meet, Law and Parliamentary Affairs Minister J C Madhuswamy said.

'People are coming from other states to Karnataka.... we have decided to suspend air traffic from five states, as cases here (Karnataka) may further increase,' Law and Parliamentary Affairs Minister J C Madhuswamy said.

He also said the existing bar on entry of people by road from Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Gujarat into Karnataka would continue until further orders.

Bengal records biggest single-day spike with 344 new cases

West Bengal on Thursday recorded the biggest single-day spike with 344 fresh Covid-19 cases, taking the virus count to 4,536, a state health department bulletin said.

The death toll due to the disease climbed to 223 as six more people died in the last 24 hours, it said.

The number of active cases in the state stands at 2,573, according to the bulletin.

A total of 90 patients were discharged from hospitals in the last 24 hours after they tested negative for the disease, taking the total number of recoveries in the state to 1,668, it said.

At least 9,256 samples were tested for the contagion since Wednesday evening. With this, 1,75,769 tests have been conducted in the state so far.

The bulletin stated that the deaths of 72 other Covid-19 patients were due to comorbidities and novel coronavirus was 'incidental' in their cases.