Here's your 10-point cheatsheet to this big story:
India has also recorded more daily new recoveries than cases for 44 successive days bringing its active caseload down to 4.65 lakh; 43,851 patients fought off COVID-19 successfully in the last 24 hours. The recovery rate has improved to 93.27 per cent today. The total recovered cases stand at 82,49,579.
78.59 per cent daily recoveries are from 10 states and UTs, with Delhi, Kerala and West Bengal topping the charts with 7,606, 6,684 and 4,480 recoveries, respectively.
Daily new cases of 30,548 is an historic low that assumes significance given many countries in Europe and America are experiencing a continuous and steep rise in daily cases.
The drop in infections comes with a fall in positivity rate to 3.5 per cent despite no change in the national testing average (8.6 lakh samples tested in the last 24 hours against 8 lakh day before). However, many states with high infection rate, including Delhi, tested fewer samples in view of Diwali. The drop in daily case count also comes despite a slow, but steady case surge in northern states, including Himachal Pradesh.
An urgent coronavirus meeting was called by Home Minister Amit Shah in Delhi, which is in the midst of a third wave that is showing no signs easing. He released a set of 12 measures to contain the pandemic in the city, which reported almost 3,000 cases yesterday as testing dropped to one-third of usual.
Delhi, which has been reporting an average of 7,000 a day for the past week, recorded the second highest numbers nationally after Kerala - 4,581. Maharashtra, worst hit in terms of absolute numbers, was fourth in line with 2,544 cases after West Bengal (3,053). Rajasthan recorded fifth highest cases at 2,184. Together, these states account for 51 per cent.
About 64 per cent of all deaths were reported from Delhi (95), Maharashtra (60), West Bengal (51), Punjab (30 ), Kerala and Karnataka each of which reported 21 Covid-related fatalities.
The World Health Organisation seeing record 6,60,905 cases over the weekend. There are more than 5.3 crore confirmed cases of COVID-19 in total since the start of the pandemic in China's Wuhan last year; over 13 lakh people have lost their lives to the viral disease since then.
The US, worst hit in absolute numbers, surpassed 1.1 crore coronavirus cases on Sunday, adding 10 lakh new cases in less than a week, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University.
In France, Europe's worst-hit nation with almost 20 lakh cases and 44,548 deaths so far, the number of people in hospital for COVID-19 is now higher than during the previous wave in April as people violated lockdown.
Covid-19 Cases Rising Again: WHO Issues Urgent Alert On Potentially Severe Variants Covid-19 Still Driving High Mortality Rate In This Country Biden Returns To White House After Exiting US Presidential Race Elon Musk's Response After Trump Says He Would Make Him Adviser Indian Airports, Borders On Alert As Global Mpox Cases Rise: 10 Points Live: "I've Been Determined To Keep America Moving Forward," Says Biden Biden Calls Trump "Loser" In Fiery Speech At Democratic Convention Joe Biden Wins Huge Ovation At Democratic Convention Farewell Back-To-Back Earthquakes Of 4.9 Magnitude Hit Kashmir's Baramulla Track Latest News Live on NDTV.com and get news updates from India and around the world.