By TRN Online, Kathmandu, June 20: With 1,421 new cases of COVID-19 confirmed on Sunday, the nation's novel coronavirus tally has reached 621,056.

In 6,677 Real-Time Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR) tests done in the past 24 hours, a total of 1,421 persons were found infected with SARS-CoV-2, informed Dr. Krishna Prasad Poudel, spokesperson at the Ministry of Health and Population in the regular press briefing.

Likewise, the virus infection was detected in 1,021 people in 4,249 antigen tests performed in the last 24 hours.

In the past day, the highest infection rate was identified in Gandaki Province followed by Karnali Province and Province 1.

Of the new infections, 548 were detected in the Kathmandu Valley including 450 in Kathmandu, 53 in Lalitpur, and 25 in Bhaktapur.

Currently, there are 55,532 active cases of COVID-19 across the nation of which, 3,699 are admitted to various institutional isolation while the remaining 51,833 patients are placed in home isolation. Of the active patients, 871 are admitted to the ICU and 250 are under treatment with the ventilator facility. Of the active cases, 60.8 per cent are males.

A total of 42 districts across the nation have more than 500 active cases of COVID-19 while the cases are declining. The number of active cases is higher in people aged between 20 to 60 years.

Meanwhile, 3,456 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 556,798 cases of recovery.

The Ministry of Health and Population on Sunday added 51 fatalities to the nation's COVID-19 death toll, which has now reached 8,726 and the death rate is 1.4 per cent.