India registered 7,240 New Covid-19 cases in the last 24 hours, against the 5,233 infections logged the previous day, the Union Health Ministry said on Thursday.
In the same period, the country has reported eight new Covid fatalities, taking the nationwide death toll to 5,24,723.
Meanwhile, the active caseload of the country has also increased to 32,498 cases, accounting for 0.08 per cent of the country’s total positive cases.
The recovery of 3,591 patients in the last 24 hours took the cumulative tally to 4,26,40,301. Consequently, India’s recovery rate stands at 98.71 per cent.
While the daily positivity rate spiked to 2.13 per cent, the weekly positivity rate stood at 1.31 per cent.
Also in the same period, a total of 3,40,615 tests were conducted across the country, increasing the overall tally to over 85.38 crore.
As of Thursday morning, India’s Covid-19 vaccination coverage exceeded 194.59 crore, achieved via 2,48,87,047 sessions.
Over 3.47 crore adolescents have been administered with a first dose of Covid-19 jab since the beginning of vaccination drive for this age bracket.
The Union Health Ministry is closely monitoring the situation in the states like Maharashtra, Kerala, Delhi and Karnataka and has asked them to follow the five-fold strategy and amp-up testing.
The Ministry has also asked the States to monitor clusters of new COVID cases and follow COVID appropriate behaviour.
Recently, Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan asked state officials in Kerala, Karanataka, Maharashtra, Telangana and Tamil Nadu to closely monitor emerging clusters, maintain adequate number of testing and send samples from infected individuals for genome sequencing.
“There are few states which are reporting a higher contribution to India’s cases indicating the possibility of a localised spread of infection. There is, therefore, a need to follow a risk assessment based approach on the public health responses without losing the gains made so far in the fight against the pandemic,” Mr Bhushan said in a letter sent to the five states.
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.
