Health Ministry reports 2,079 new COVID cases, 26 deaths on Friday

The Ministry of Health and Population (MoHP) Friday confirmed the detection of 2,079 new cases of coronavirus infection. With this, the COVID count has reached 744,307. Additionally, 963 persons have tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 in the antigen test.

Likewise, the MoHP has recorded 26 deaths from COVID-19 in the past 24 hours. The ministry on May 19 recorded 246 deaths, the highest daily number. As of Friday, the nationwide death toll from COVID-19 has reached 10,429. Presently, there are 40,309 cases in Nepal.

Meanwhile, the three districts of Kathmandu valley have recorded 898 cases in the past 24 hours. Kathmandu logged 604 cases, Lalitpur logged 187 cases and Bhaktapur logged 107 cases, as per the data released by the MoHP.

As many as 2,244 patients of COVID-19 have recovered in the past 24 hours. As of Friday, a total of 693,543 people have recovered from the viral disease, the data released by the MoHP showed. Presently, the recovery rate stands at 93.1 per cent while the fatality rate is 1.5 per cent.

Earlier, the MoHP on Thursday had reported 2,321 cases of coronavirus infection that had taken the nationwide tally to 742,228.

As of Friday, a total of 3,813,545 people have undergone the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test. Presently, there are 40,309 people staying in isolation while 446 others have been placed in quarantine in the country.

Meanwhile, 1,976,124 people have been administered the first dose of Covishield vaccines and 1,005,963 have been vaccinated with the booster dose. Likewise, 2,931,399 people have been vaccinated with the first dose of the Vero Cell vaccine while 1,461,022 others have received the second dose as of August 20, 2021, the Ministry's data showed. Similarly, a total of 1,332,193 persons — 189,719 in Province 1; 268,606 in Province 2; 327,954 in Bagmati Province; 101,913 in Gandaki Province; 248,055 in Lumbini Province, 63,605 in Karnali Province, and 132,341 in Sudurpaschim Province — have been vaccinated with single-shot Janssen vaccines.

More than 210.06 million people have been reported to be infected by the novel coronavirus worldwide while at least  4,578,000  people have died from COVID-19, following an outbreak that started in Wuhan, China, in 2019-December, COVID-19 Global tracker data shown by Reuters. It has been reported that COVID-19 infections are still rising in 86 countries where The United States is the new hotspot of COVID-19 facing a daily surge of rapid infections.