With 72 new cases of COVID-19 confirmed on Saturday the nation's novel coronavirus tally has reached 979,213.

According to Ministry of Health and Population, in 1539 Real-Time Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR) tests done in the past 24 hours, a total of 72 persons were found infected with SARS-CoV-2, informed the Ministry of Health and Population (MoHP) in its regular update.

Likewise, in 1076 antigen tests performed in the last 24 hours 30 cases are detected positive.

Currently, there are 605 active cases of COVID-19 across the nation while 596 patients are placed in home isolation and 9are admitted to hospitals. Out of them 6 are in ICU and one in ventilator.

Meanwhile, 31 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 967656 cases of recovery, and the recovery rate is at 98.5 per cent.

The MoHP on Saturday reported no COVID-19 related fatalities to the nation's COVID-19 death toll, which has now reached 11,952.