Professor Dr. Jageshwor Gautam, spokesperson The Ministry of Health and Population (MoHP) confirmed 859 COVID-19 cases on Friday. Of this, Kathmandu District records 698 followed by Lalitpur 79 and Bhaktapur 82.

Professor Dr. Gautam informed that in 11,458 Real-Time Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR) tests done in the last 24 hours, 2,020 persons were found with the novel coronavirus infection.

He said that 871 some COVID-19 patients receiving treatment at various health facilities across the nation were discharged in the last 24 hours after recovering from the virus infection. The recovery rate now stands at 71.1 per cent.

Currently, there are 17,383 active cases of COVID-19 of which, 9,295 patients are in institutional isolation and 8,088 are in home isolation. Some 7,736 persons, mostly those who had returned from abroad, are placed in quarantine.

Of the active patients, 173 are in ICU and 36 are receiving treatment with the ventilator facility.

With this, the national COVID-19 tally has reached 61,593 including 43,820 cases of recovery and 390 death cases.