By TRN Online, Kathmandu, Oct. 21: With 5,743 new cases of the novel coronavirus infection confirmed on Tuesday, the national COVID-19 caseload has surged to 144,872. This is the highest number of infections recorded across the nation in a single day.

"In 20,118 Real-Time Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR) tests done in the last 24 hours, as many as  persons were found to have been infected with SARS-CoV-2," informed Dr. Jageshwor Gautam, spokesperson of the Ministry of Health and Population (MoHP) in the regular press briefing today.

Currently, there are 44,476 active cases of COVID-19 of which, 14,676 patients are receiving treatment in institutional isolations and 29,800 are in home isolation. Some 4,065 people are currently placed in quarantine centers across the nation.

Of the active cases, 269 are admitted to the ICU and 87 are under treatment with ventilator facility.

Meanwhile, some 2,996 COVID-19 patients, either receiving treatment at various health facilities or staying in home isolation, recovered from the infection in the last 24 hours. Nepal has now registered 99,605 cases of recoveries and the recovery rate is at 68.7 per cent.

Furthermore, 26 patients receiving treatment at various health facilities across the nation succumbed to the novel coronavirus infection in the last 24 hours. Nepal's COVID-19 death toll has now reached 791.