Covid LIVE: Maharashtra lockdown may be extended till May 31, says minister

Coronavirus live updates: India recorded 348,529 fresh Covid-19 infections on Wednesday, taking the caseload tally to 23,340,938, according to MoHFW. Active Covid-19 cases in India have decreased for three straight days for the first time since early March, both indicating that the country may have reached, or is closing to reaching, the peak of the devastating second wave of the pandemic. However, deaths from the virus surged again on Tuesday to 4,200, the highest daily toll recorded in the country till date. The previous highest was 4,187 reported on Friday. The total death toll currently stands at 254,225.

Maharashtra reported  40,956 new coronavirus disease (Covid-19) cases and 920 deaths, followed by Karnataka (39,510), Kerala (37,290), Uttar Pradesh (20,463), Tamil Nadu (29,272), Andhra Pradesh (20,345), West Bengal (20,136), Delhi (12,481) in the past 24 hours.

The six most affected states by total cases are Maharashtra (5,179,929), Karnataka (2,013,193), Kerala (1,939,918), Uttar Pradesh (1,545,212), Tamil Nadu (1,438,509), Delhi (1,323,567), and Andhra Pradesh (1,322,934).

World coronavirus update: Coronavirus cases rise unabated across the globe with 160,316,836 infected by the deadly contagion. While 139,028,061 have recovered, 3,330,828 have died so far. The US remains the worst-hit country with 33,550,111, followed by India, Brazil, France and Turkey. However, in the past seven days, India has added the highest number of fresh cases at 2,716,384, followed by the Brazil (422,596) and US (282,753).