New Delhi:

India's COVID-19 tally rose to 87.28 lakh on Friday with a single-day increase of 44,879 cases, while the recoveries surged to 81,15,580, pushing the national recovery rate to 92.97 per cent, according to the Union Health Ministry's data.

The death toll reached 1,28,668 after 547 more fatalities were reported in the country in a span of 24 hours, the data updated at 8 am showed.

The COVID-19 case fatality rate has further declined to 1.47 per cent.

There are 4,84,547 active cases in the country which comprise 5.55 per cent of the total caseload, the data stated.

With 44,879 fresh cases, the total coronavirus cases mounted to 87,28,795, it added.

According to the ICMR, a cumulative total of 12,31,01,739 samples have been tested so far with 11,39,230 samples being tested on Thursday.

The 547 new fatalities include 122 from Maharashtra, 104 from Delhi, 54 from West Bengal, 25 each from Kerala and Tamil Nadu, 23 from Punjab, 21 each from Karnataka and Uttar Pradesh, 20 from Chhattisgarh and 19 from Haryana.

Delhi’s COVID-19 deaths rose by a record high and it also reported the most number of infections in India, an increase attributed to the city’s toxic air and a lack of physical distancing in public places around a major festival.Delhi late on Thursday reported 104 new deaths and 7,053 new infections. Data from the health ministry early on Friday showed that infections in the country rose by 44,789 in the past 24 hours, taking the total to 8.73 million, only behind the U.S. tally.

A total of 1,28,668 deaths have been reported so far in the country, including 45,682 from Maharashtra followed by 11,474 from Karnataka, 11,440 from Tamil Nadu, 7,506 from West Bengal, 7,332 from Delhi, 7,302 from Uttar Pradesh, 6,837 from Andhra Pradesh, 4,412 from Punjab and 3,785 from Gujarat.

India's COVID-19 tally had crossed the 20-lakh mark on August 7, 30 lakh on August 23 and 40 lakh on September 5.

It went past 50 lakh on September 16, 60 lakh on September 28, 70 lakh on October 11 and crossed 80 lakh on October 29.

The health ministry stressed that more than 70 per cent of the deaths occurred due to comorbidities.