India recorded 16,862 new coronavirus infections taking the total tally of COVID-19 cases to 3,40,37,592, while the active cases declined to 2,03,678, the lowest in 216 days, according to the Union Health Ministry data updated on Friday.
The number of deaths climbed to 4,51,814 with 379 fresh fatalities, according to the data updated at 8 am.
The daily rise in new coronavirus infections has been below 30,000 for 21 straight days and less than 50,000 daily new cases have been reported for 110 consecutive days now.
The active cases comprise 0.60 per cent of the total infections, the lowest since March 2020, while the national COVID-19 recovery rate was recorded at 98.07 per cent, the highest since March 2020, the ministry said.
India's COVID-19 tally had crossed the 20-lakh mark on August 7, 2020, 30 lakh on August 23, 40 lakh on September 5 and 50 lakh on September 16. It went past 60 lakh on September 28, 70 lakh on October 11, crossed 80 lakh on October 29, 90 lakh on November 20 and surpassed the one-crore mark on December 19.
India crossed the grim milestone of two crore on May 4 and three crore on June 23.
Here are the Highlights on coronavirus (COVID-19) cases:
Delhi recorded zero death due to COVID-19 and 26 fresh cases on Friday with a positivity rate of 0.04 per cent, according to data shared by the city health department.
Karnataka on Friday recorded 470 fresh COVID-19 cases and nine deaths, taking the caseload and death toll to 29,82,869 and 37,931, the health department said.
The day also saw 368 people being discharged, pushing the total number of recoveries to 29,35,238.
Active cases stood at 9,671, a department bulletin said.
The hospitality industry, which was badly hit during the COVID-19 pandemic, is facing another challenge with the cost of gas cylinders rising rapidly.
Kerala reported 8,867 fresh COVID-19 cases in the last 24 hours. The active cases in the state now stand at 94,756.
Total recoveries: 47,16,728
Death toll: 26,734
Active cases: 94,756
The coronavirus pandemic has made vaccines from Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna and the mRNA technology that they use into household names.
These types of jabs are new but researchers have been working for decades to try to figure out how to use messenger RNA for other vaccinations and to treat illnesses from AIDS to cancer.
In the last 24 hours, Ladakh recorded six new COVID-19 cases, taking the infection tally in the Union Territory to 20,867.
A health worker walks on top of two bamboo logs - the only remains of a makeshift bridge made by locals- as he crosses a raging river to reach a remote village in Arunachal Pradesh, in a video shared on Twitter highlighting the challenges faced by th
The high number of COVID-19 cases in Delhi during the second wave shows that the Delta variant can infect even those who have previously been infected by a different variant of coronavirus, an international team of scientists said today.
The study also said that achieving herd immunity against the Delta variant would be difficult.
Assam's COVID-19 tally rose to 6,05,847 on Thursday as 207 more people tested positive for the infection while two fresh fatalities pushed the state's coronavirus death toll to 5,938, a health bulletin said. The positivity rate rose to 1.53 per cent from 0.85 per cent on Wednesday, it said.