India recorded 45,231 new cases of COVID-19 in the last 24 hours, government data shows. The daily case count was 3.6 per cent lower than yesterday's 46,963. With this, the country's overall coronavirus cases since January surged past 82.29 lakh. In this period, 496 people lost their life to COVID-19, which has claimed more than 1.2 lakh lives till now. The country's Covid fatality rate has remained steady at 1.5 per cent. India is the world's second-worst affected country after the United States, which has nearly 92 lakh infections and logged record 1 lakh-plus cases in a day yesterday.
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Active cases dropped to 5.61 lakh as 53,285 people fought off COVID-19 over a one-day period. More than 75.4 lakh people have recovered from the coronavirus disease till now, pushing the recovery rate to 91.7 per cent.
However, the national average daily positivity rate for coronavirus, which indicates how widespread the infection is, has increased to 5.3 per cent from the earlier 4.6 per cent as 8.5 lakh tests were conducted.
Health experts and scientists have warned of a rise in cases as winter sets in and people venture out amid the ongoing festival season.
The trend has started reflecting for Delhi, which has been recording more than 5,000 cases for the past five days amid rising pollution, low night temperatures and a fair number of people at its markets. Delhi, which had recorded its highest daily cases on Friday at 5,891, has more than 3.92 lakh total cases with 6,562 deaths.
At 5,664, the national capital's daily Covid number were second highest in the country after Kerala which recorded 7,025 new cases taking its tally to 4.4 lakh with just 1,512 deaths. Both these states have a positivity rate of about 12 per cent.
Maharashtra - the worst affected state in the country with total 16.8 lakh cases with 44,024 deaths - logged the third highest daily Covid numbers at 5,369.
West Bengal logged almost 3,987cases, followed by Karnataka 3,652. Together the five states with highest daily Covid number accounted for 56.8 per cent of all cases in the country.
Maximum daily deaths were reported from Maharashtra (113), West Bengal (59), Delhi (51), Chhattisgarh (49) and Tamil Nadu (30), accounting for 60.8 per cent of all fatalities in the country.
Assam, Uttarakhand and Andhra Pradesh reopen schools from today with Covid-related restrictions. However, Rajasthan, which has banned sale of fire crackers in view of COVID-19, has also decided to keep its schools and colleges shut till after Diwali - November 16.
Britain announced a new four-week coronavirus lockdown across England - its largest constituent - a day after the country reported more than 22,000 daily cases on Saturday. While schools, colleges and universities will remain open, pubs and restaurants will shut unless serving takeaway food.
