India

New cases continue to decline as India logs 67,597 cases in 24 hrs; death toll up

PNS

India is seeing a decline in new Covid-19 cases with 67,597 infections registered on Tuesday. Fatalities, however, have been over 1,000 in the past few days taking the death tally to 5,04,062 cases.

The total cases are reported at 4,23,39,611, while the active cases fell below 10 lakh after around 27 days, the Union Health Ministry said on Tuesday. The active Covid cases have declined to 9,94,891, comprising 2.35 per cent of the total infections. The national recovery rate improved to 96.46 per cent, the Ministry said.

 There was a reduction of 1,14,047 cases in the active Covid-19 case count in a span of 24 hours, as per the data.  The daily positivity rate was recorded at 5.02 per cent while the weekly positivity rate was recorded at 8.30 per cent, it said. The number of people who have recuperated from Covid surged to 4,08,40,658, while the case fatality rate was recorded at 1.19 per cent, the data showed.

India's Covid-19 tally had crossed the 20-lakh mark on August 7, 2020, 30 lakh on August 23, 40 lakh on September 5 and 50 lakh on September 16. It went past 60 lakh on September 28, 70 lakh on October 11, crossed 80 lakh on October 29, 90 lakh on November 20 and surpassed the one-crore mark on December 19.  The country crossed the grim milestone of two crore Covid cases on May 4, 2021, and three crore cases on June 23 last year.

 The 1,188 new fatalities included 860 from Kerala and 49 from Karnataka, the data stated.

Of the 860 deaths, 14 were reported in the past 24 hours, 113 occurred in the last few days but were not recorded due to late receipt of documents and 733 were designated as Covid-19 deaths after receiving appeals based on the new guidelines of the Centre and the directions of the Supreme Court, a Kerala government release said on  Monday.

A total of 5,05,062 deaths have been reported so far in the country, including 1,43,098 from Maharashtra, 59,115  from Kerala,  39,396 from Karnataka, 37,772 from Tamil Nadu, 25,998 from Delhi, 23,330 from Uttar Pradesh and 20,852 from West Bengal.

 The health ministry stressed that more than 70 per cent of the deaths occurred due to comorbidities.

In the meantime, the government said that more than 5 crore adolescents in the 15-18 age group have been administered the first dose of Covid-19 vaccine in the country while the cumulative Covid-19 vaccine doses administered in the country have exceeded 170.21 crore.