New Delhi: India logged 8,865 new coronavirus infections, the lowest in 287 days, taking the country's tally of COVID-19 cases to 3,44,56,401, while the active cases settled at 1,30,793, the lowest in 525 days, according to the Union Health Ministry data updated on Tuesday.
The number of deaths climbed to 4,63,852 with 197 fresh fatalities, according to the data updated at 8 am.
The daily rise in new coronavirus infections has been below 20,000 for 39 straight days and less than 50,000 daily new cases have been reported for 142 consecutive days now.
The top five states which have registered maximum cases are Kerala with 4,547 cases, followed by Tamil Nadu with 802 cases, West Bengal with 782 cases, Maharashtra with 686 cases and Mizoram with 611 cases.
These five states have reported 83.79% of the new cases with Kerala alone responsible for 51.29% of the new cases.
As many as 197 people succumbed to the virus in the last 24 hours taking the total death toll to 4,63,852.
Maximum casualties were reported in Kerala where 127 people lost their lives, followed by Maharashtra with 19 daily deaths.
The active cases comprise 0.38 per cent of the total infections, the lowest since March 2020, while the national COVID-19 recovery rate was recorded at 98.27 per cent, the highest since March 2020, the ministry said.
A decrease of 3,303 cases has been recorded in the active COVID-19 caseload in a span of 24 hours.
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.