New Delhi, January 20:

India’s daily coronavirus disease (Covid-19) rose sharply on Thursday with 317,532 cases registered in the last 24 hours, which pushed the caseload to 38,218,773, according to the Union health ministry’s data.

Fresh deaths also surged to 491 while 223,990 more patients recuperated from the viral disease on Thursday. With this, the total number of deaths and recoveries has climbed to 487,693 and 35,807,029 respectively. The active cases are nearing the two million mark and currently constitute 4.83% of total cases.

On Wednesday, the country registered nearly 283,000 fresh cases, 441 deaths and 188,157 recoveries.

The total number of tests carried out in the country is over 700 million with 1,935,180 tests conducted in the last 24 hours, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) said on Thursday.