News Desk: According to the latest data released by the Union ministry of health and family welfare on Thursday morning, India witnessed the world’s highest single-day spike with 314,835 new cases of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) and 2,104 fatalities in the last 24 hours.

The total infection tally has topped 15.9 million while the active Covid-19 caseload stands at 2291428.

Since the disease struck the country in January last year, the unprecedented numbers of single-day cases as well as the fatalities smashed all previous record of coronavirus cases in India.

The number of infections detected are a result of 16,51,711 samples test in the last 24 hours, according to the government data.

In the meantime, the second wave’s oxygen crisis appeared to intensify with complaints of shortage from several states, including Maharashtra where 24 patients on ventilator support suffocated to death due to leakage in an oxygen storage tank.

The Centre announced on Wednesday evening that it was increasing the quota of oxygen in eight states, including Delhi, in view of the sudden spike in demand due to an exponential rise in the number of Covid-19 patients admitted in hospitals.

The government also tried to clam the panic by presenting a slew of statistics to show the severity and virulence of the current second wave of the epidemic was similar as the fisrt one. According to  him, 8.07 per cent of cases reported in the first wave were between the age group of 10-20 years, while in this time it is 8.50 per cent.

Meanwhile, India administered over 132 million coronavirus vaccine doses by Wednesday evening while government announced that the inoculation programme will be made available for all citizens above the age of 18 years from May 1 onwards.

The Centre said that the breakthrough infection rate after taking the first and the second dose of the Covid-19 vaccines approved in India remained low for both Covaxin and Covishield vaccines, boosting the confidence among the people and encourage them to get vaccinated against coronavirus.

However, top doctors, including Dr Randeep Guleria, director of AIIMS Delhi, Dr Devi Shetty, chairman of Narayana Health, and Dr Naresh Trehan, chairman, of Medanta, held an interactive meet on Wednesday, where they said vaccine does not prevent from getting the coronavirus infection and advised everyone to maintain Covid-appropriate behaviour even after being vaccinated.