DW BUREAU / Shimla Himachal Pradesh Education Minister Govind Singh Thakur and his wife tested positive for coronavirus on Thursday, health officials said. Both are in home isolation. Thakur's personal security officer was also diagnosed Covid positive.The Minister gave this information on his tweet also. Two days ago, the Minister attended the Cabinet meeting in Shimla. Earlier, Chief Minister Jairam Thakur and some of his cabinet colleagues were also diagnosed Covid positive. A total of 332 Covid-19 cases were reported in the state on Wednesday, taking the total tally to 21,149. The state has 2,646 active cases and 295 have succumbed to the virus. India's COVID-19 caseload surpassed the 80-lakh mark on Thursday, 18 days after it had gone past 70 lakh, with 49,881 new cases while the recoveries surged to 73.15 lakh pushing the national recovery rate to 90.99 per cent, according to the Union Health Ministry data. The total coronavirus cases mounted to 80,40,203 and the death toll climbed to 1,20,527 with the novel coronavirus virus claiming 517 lives in a span of 24 hours in the country, the data updated at 8 am showed. The COVID-19 case fatality rate has further declined to 1.49 per cent. There are 603687 active cases of coronavirus infection in the country which comprises 7.5 per cent of the total caseload, the data stated. According to the ICMR, a cumulative total of 10,65,63,440 samples have been tested up to October 28 with 10,75,760 samples being tested on Wednesday. India's COVID-19 tally had crossed the 20-lakh mark on August 7, 30 lakh on August 23 and 40 lakh on September 5. It went past  50 lakh on September 16, 60 lakh on September 28 and crossed 70 lakh on October 11. The 517 new fatalities include 91 from Maharashtra, 60 from West Bengal, 55 each from Chhattisgarh and Karnataka, 40 from Delhi, 35 from Tamil Nadu and 27 from Kerala. A total of 1,20,527 deaths have been reported so far in the country. (editor@dailyworld.in)