Fresh Covid-19 cases are showing an alarming upward trend over the past one week, with the country reporting 16,738 cases in the last 24 hours taking the overall tally to 1,10,46,914 on Thursday, Union Health Ministry said. The rise in new cases is almost 2,996 more than previous day. India has been recording less than 15,000 new infections daily with the toll not crossing the 200-mark over the last one month.

However, the number spiked possibly owing to "mutations and new strains", as has been studied by the laboratories involved in Covid detection across the country. The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare said that there were 138 more deaths taking the overall toll to 1,56,705. Last week, officials said that the average daily new infections for the last 15 days were oscillating between 9,000 to 12,000 while the deaths were between 78 to 120.