The union health ministry on February 28 informed that thirteen states and six Union territories did not report any COVID-19-related deaths in the last 24 hours.

The states which did not report any COVID-19 related deaths are Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, Goa, Himachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Sikkim, Mizoram, Meghalaya, Tripura, Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh.

Among the six Union Territories that did not report a single COVID-19 death in the last 24 hours were Jammu & Kashmir, Chandigarh, Lakshadweep, Ladakh, Andaman & Nicobar Islands, Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu.

It may be mentioned here that India, in the last 24 hours, reported 16,752 new COVID-19 cases and 113 deaths.

The overall coronavirus caseload in the country has now gone up to 11,096,731.

The country now has a total of 164,511 active cases and 10,775,169 patients have recovered so far.

The union health ministry further informed that six states accounted for 84.96 per cent of the COVID-19 deaths in the country that have been reported between Saturday and Sunday morning.

In this period Maharashtra reported the maximum number of casualties with 51 deaths.

Further, Maharashtra reported 8,623 new cases and 3,638 recoveries. Kerala reported 18 coronavirus deaths in this period, which were the second-highest in the country.

The southern state reported 3,792 fresh coronavirus cases, pushing the cumulative count of cases in the state to 10, 56,149.

Punjab reported the third-highest number of coronavirus-related deaths with 11 deaths reported in the last 24 hours.

It logged 595 new Covid-19 cases on Saturday, taking the total number of cases in the state to 181,597.

The country will begin the second phase of its COVID-19 vaccination programme for people above 60 years of age and those above 45 years of age with comorbidities on Monday.

The second phase of the vaccination will also include armed forces and police personnel.

To ramp up the Covid-19 vaccination capacity, the government has roped in 20,000 private hospitals and 10,000 government centres.