COVID-19: India records 42,766 cases & 308 deaths, active cases increase to 4,10,048

India’s daily fresh COVID-19 cases increased for the fifth day in a row as 42,766 people tested positive for the coronavirus in the past 24 hours. As per the data released by the Union Health Ministry, India's overall infection tally rose to 3,29,88,673. On the data updated at 8 am on Sunday, 308 people succumbed to the virus as the cumulative COVID-19 death toll has reached 4,40,533. As per the health ministry, there are 4,10,048 active cases in the country which is 1.24% of the total infections, while the national COVID-19 recovery rate was recorded at 97.42%.

Even though the daily caseload has remained before 50,000 for the 70th consecutive days, there has been a significant increase of 4,367 cases recorded in the last 24 hours. The ministry further said that there were 17,47,476 tests conducted on Saturday. Since the beginning of the pandemic in March 2020, there has been a total of 53,00,58,218 COVID-19 tests in the country. The daily positivity rate still remains a concern as it is significantly higher than in other countries. On Saturday, the rate remained at 2.45% and the weekly positivity rate was slightly higher at 2.62%. The rate has remained below 3% for almost two and a half months. As per the official data, the number of people who have recovered from the disease are 3,21,38,092 and the fatality rate stands at 1.34%.

India's vaccination program picking up speed

India has recently posted good vaccination numbers and the total number of COVID-19 vaccine doses administered in the country has crossed 68.46 crore. Even the Union government celebrated India’s performance on the vaccine stage in August as the country administered more doses of vaccines against Covid-19 than all the G7 countries put together. The official Twitter handle shared the infographic with the data where all the G7 members had administered a combined total of 101 million doses, while India had administered more than 180 million vaccine doses were administered in the country last month. The G7 states include Canada (3 million doses), United Kingdom (5 million doses), Italy (8 million doses), Germany (9 million doses), France (13), the United States of America (23) and Japan (40). MyGovIndia tweeted, “Yet another achievement! With more than 180 million vaccine doses administered in the month of August, India leaves a mark on the global map of leading its way in vaccinating its population on priority.”