Guwahati, Jan 17 (PTI) Assam reported 6,982 fresh COVID-19 cases on Monday, the biggest single-day spike since the onset of the pandemic, raising the tally to 6,53,717, a National Health Mission (NHM) bulletin said. The new infections were detected out of 64,919 sample tests conducted during the day, with the positivity rate at 10.75 per cent, Health Minister Keshab Mahanta said. This is the biggest single-day increase in new infections since May 20, 2021. At the peak of the second wave of the pandemic, 6,573 COVID-19 cases were reported on May 20 last year. The active COVID-19 cases in the state have risen to 23,948, an increase of 4,690 from 19,258 the day before. Assam has been witnessing a surge in COVID-19 cases since the beginning of 2022 with 2,709 and 3,390 fresh cases reported over the last two days. With 1,491 new cases on Monday, Kamrup Metropolitan district, which primarily comprises Guwahati, continued to report the highest number of coronavirus infections. Dibrugarh and Tinsukia logged over 400 new cases during the day with 489 and 407 infections reported respectively. The state’s death toll climbed to 6,217 with 11 more fatalities. Two deaths each were reported from Kamrup Metropolitan, Sivsagar, and Sonitpur, while one each from Dibrugarh, Dima Hasao, Golaghat, Jorhat, and Tinsukia. The number of COVID-19 positive patients dying due to other reasons remained at 1,347. The number of COVID-19 patients who were discharged from hospitals and Covid Care Centres on Monday was 2,281. The total figure of cured COVID-19 patients in the state so far has reached 6,22,205 with the recovery rate at 95.18 per cent. A total of 4,00,16,105 doses of COVID-19 vaccines have been administered in the state so far. As many as 2,03,392 people were vaccinated on Monday, down from 37,122 shots on Sunday. PTI SSG MM MM