With a record single-day increase of 66,999 cases, India's COVID-19 tally mounted to 23,96,637 on Thursday, while the number of patients who have recovered from the disease surged to 16,95,982, pushing the recovery rate to 70.77 per cent in the country, according to the Union health ministry. The death toll due to COVID-19 climbed to 47,033 with 942 people succumbing to the disease in the last 24 hours, health ministry data updated at 8 am showed.

The case fatality rate in the country has declined to 1.96 per cent. There are 6,53,622 active COVID-19 cases in the country presently, which accounts for 27.27 per cent of its total caseload.