India Covid Cases: The third Covid wave has pushed up daily case counts in major cities. (File)
India reported 2.38 lakh Covid cases over the past 24 hours, 7 per cent lower than yesterday, as the positivity rate dropped from 19.65 per cent to 14.43 per cent.
A total of 8,891 cases of the fast-spreading Omicron strain, which is learnt to be driving the third wave of the pandemic across the world, have been confirmed so far -- an increase of 8.31 per cent since yesterday.
According to the bulletin issued by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare this morning, the country's active caseload currently stands at 17.36 lakh and recovery rate is over 94 per cent.
According to the government data, the country saw 1.57 lakh recoveries over the past 24 hours, taking the total number of recoveries to over 3 crore.
The country has recorded 310 deaths due to the infection over the past 24 hours -- down from yesterday's 385.
A total of 16.49 samples have been tested over the past 24 hours -- 3.35 lakh more than the previous day. This comes after the Indian Council of Medical Research, the government's top medical body, said contacts of Covid patients, unless identified as high-risk, don't need to be tested.
The advisory has sparked fears of underreporting of cases and instances of people being turned away from testing centres for being asymptomatic.
On the vaccination front, over 158 crore doses have been administered under the nationwide vaccination drive.
The third wave of Covid infections in the country has pushed up daily case counts with Mumbai, Delhi and Kolkata among the cities reporting very high number of cases.
The spike has forced governments to bring back curbs on public movement which had been eased after the second wave.
Amid this spike, the upcoming Assembly elections in five states have raised apprehensions of another surge in Covid numbers.
Post a comment