New Delhi: India reported 80,472 fresh infections of COVID-19 during the past 24 hours, pushing the country caseload beyond 62 lakhs, while the death toll climbed to 97,497 with 1,179 fresh casualties. According to the Union Health Ministry data on Wednesday, a total of 86,428 people recovered in the same period surging the recoveries to 51,87,825. The current recovery rate stands at 83.33 per cent. The gap between recovered cases and active cases has crossed 42 lakh (42,47,384). With increasing number of recoveries, this gap is continuously widening. The active cases have less than halved in two months from 33.32 per cent on August 1 to 15.11 per cent.There are 9,40,441 active cases of coronavirus infection in the country which comprises 15.11 per cent of the total cases while the fatality rate stands at 1.57 per cent.According to the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), as many as 10,86,688 samples were tested in the past 24 hours, taking the total cumulative samples tested since the beginning of the pandemic till Tuesday to 7,41,96,729.Of the new cases, Maharashtra contributed the maximum with nearly 15,000 cases followed by Karnataka with more than 10,000 cases. 76 per cent of the new cases are from 10 States and UTs. The fresh cases break up is: Maharashtra – 14,976, Karnataka – 10,453, Kerala – 7,354, Andhra Pradesh – 6,190, Tamilnadu – 5,546, Uttar Pradesh – 3,981, Assam – 3,592, Delhi – 3,227, West Bengal – 3,188 and Odisha – 3,067.Nearly 85 per cent of freshly reported deaths are concentrated in ten State/UTs of Maharashtra – 430, Karnataka – 136, Punjab – 75, Tamil Nadu – 70, Uttar Pradesh – 63, West Bengal – 62, Delhi – 48, Chhattisgarh – 39, Madhya Pradesh – 39 and Andhra Pradesh – 35. According to government, 14 States & UTs have less than 5,000 active cases.