DW BUREAU / Chandigarh Ten more fatalities related to COVID-19 pushed the death toll in Punjab to 5,707, while 224 new instances of the viral infection took the tally to 1,76,520 on Monday. The state currently has 2,357 active cases of COVID-19 after 217 coronavirus patients were discharged in a day after recovering from the disease, according to a medical bulletin. So far, 1,68,456 people have been cured of the disease. Six critical patients are on ventilator support while 82 are on oxygen support, it stated. Of the new cases, Jalandhar reported 40, Ludhiana and SBS Nagar 26 each and Patiala 24. A total of 47,35,787 samples have been collected for testing so far in the state, the bulletin said. India's tally of COVID-19 cases rose to 1,09,16,589 with 11,649 new infections, while fresh fatalities were recorded below 100 for the ninth time this month, according to the Union Health Ministry data updated on Monday. The death toll increased to 1,55,732 with 90 daily new fatalities, the data updated at 8 am showed.  The number of people who have recuperated from the disease surged to 1,06,21,220 which translates to a national COVID-19 recovery rate of 97.29 per cent, while the COVID-19 case fatality rate stands at 1.43 per cent.   The total COVID-19 active cases remained below 1.5 lakh. There are 1,39,637 active cases of coronavirus infections in the country which comprise 1.28 per cent of the total caseload, the data stated. India's COVID-19 tally had crossed the 20-lakh mark on August 7, 30 lakh on August 23, 40 lakh on September 5 and 50 lakh on September 16. It went past  60 lakh on September 28,70 lakh on October 11, crossed 80 lakh on October 29, 90 lakh on November 20 and surpassed the one-crore mark on December 19. According to the ICMR, 20,67,16,634 samples have been tested up to February 14 with 4,86,122 samples being tested on Sunday. The 90 new fatalities include 40 from Maharashtra and 15 from Kerala, 6 from Tamil Nadu and 5 from Madhya Pradesh. A total of 1,55,732 deaths have been reported so far in the country including 51,529 from Maharashtra followed by 12,419 from Tamil Nadu, 12,265 from Karnataka, 10,891 from Delhi, 10,232 from West Bengal,  8,702 from Uttar Pradesh and 7,162 from Andhra Pradesh. (editor@dailyworld.in)