COVID-19: India registers 29,616 fresh cases, 28,046 recoveries and 290 deaths in 24 hrs

India registered a total of 29,616 fresh COVID-19 cases in the past 24 hours. Furthermore, there were 290 COVID-related deaths in the past 24 hours, which took the total number of deaths due to the virus to 4,46,658. The country also reported 28,046 recoveries during the past day, which increased the cumulative recoveries to 3,28,76,319. Currently, the recovery rate stands at 97.78%, which is the highest rate since the pandemic began in March 2020. The number of cases reported is 5.6% lesser than the tally reported on Friday. Moreover, the country currently has 3,01,442 active cases, with an increase of 1,280 from the previous day.

India’s weekly positivity rate currently stands at 1.99%, which has remained below 3% for the past three months or 92 days. The daily positivity rate stands at 1.86% and has been remained less than 3% for the past 26 days. Out of the fresh cases reported in the country, Kerala is responsible for 60.72% of the cases as the state registered 17,983 more cases. The fresh cases in the state have been receding in the past few days, but the tally still remains alarmingly high. The five states with the most cases registered over the past day are Kerala with 17,983 cases, Maharashtra with 3,286 cases, Tamil Nadu with 1,733 cases, Mizoram with 1,322 cases and Andhra Pradesh with 1,246 cases. Of the 29,616 registered cases, 86.34% of the cases were reported from these five states. Kerala reported the most deaths due to COVID-19 of any state in the country with 127 casualties along with another 51 deaths in Maharashtra.

Vaccination status of the country

Over the past 24 hours, 71,04,051 doses of COVID-19 vaccines were administered across the country. India’s cumulative number of doses administered reached 84,89,29,160. The Central Government announced on Thursday that 66% of the country’s eligible population has received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, whereas 23% has received both doses of the vaccine. In the last 24 hours, a total of 15,92,421 samples were tested for the coronavirus in the country, taking the total number of tests conducted since the beginning of the pandemic to over 56 crores.