With 1,648 new cases of COVID-19 confirmed on Wednesday, the nation's novel coronavirus tally has reached 764,295.

According to Dr. Krishna Prasad Poudel, spokesperson of the Ministry of Health and Population, in 10,612 Real-Time Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR) tests done in the past 24 hours, a total of 1,648 persons were found infected with COVID-19

Similarly, the virus infection was detected in 404 people in 4,323 antigen tests performed in the last 24 hours.

Of the new infections, 718 were recorded in the Kathmandu Valley - 146 in Bhaktapur, 102 in Lalitpur and 471 in Kathmandu.

As reported by Dr. Poudel, the infection rate is at 19.5 per cent. A total of 20 districts across the nation currently have more than 500 active cases of COVID-19.

According to the MoHP, there are 34,189 active cases of COVID-19 across the nation of which, 2,377 are admitted to various institutional isolation while the remaining patients are placed in home isolation. Currently, 311 people are placed in quarantine.

Of the active patients, 563 are admitted to the ICU and 170 are under treatment with the ventilator facility.

Meanwhile, 3,030 COVID-19 patients receiving treatment in institutional isolation or staying in home isolation recovered from the infection in the last 24 hours. Nepal has now recorded 719,336 cases of recovery.

The Health Ministry on Wednesday added 20 fatalities to the nation's COVID-19 death toll, which has now reached 10,770.