9,283 fresh Covid cases in India, 22% higher than yesterday

New Delhi: India added 9,283 new coronavirus infections taking the country's total tally of COVID-19 cases to 3,45,35,763 while the active cases declined to 1,11,481, the lowest in 537 days, according to the Union Health Ministry data updated on Wednesday.

The number of deaths climbed to 4,66,584 with 437 fresh fatalities, according to the data updated at 8 am.

The 437 new fatalities include 370 from Kerala and 19 from Maharashtra.

Of the 370 deaths, 57 were reported over the last few days and 313 were designated as COVID-19 deaths after receiving appeals based on the new guidelines of the Centre and the directions of the Supreme Court, a state govt release said on Tuesday.

A total of 4,66,584 deaths have been reported so far in the country including 1,40,766 from Maharashtra, 38,182 from Karnataka, 38,045 from Kerala, 36,401 from Tamil Nadu, 25,095 from Delhi, 22,909 from Uttar Pradesh and 19,407 from West Bengal.

The daily rise in new coronavirus infections has been below 20,000 for 47 straight days and less than 50,000 daily new cases have been reported for 150 consecutive days now.

The recovery of 10,949 patients in the last 24 hours has increased the cumulative tally to 3,39,57,698. Consequently, India's recovery rate stands at 98.33 per cent, highest since March 2020.

The active caseload stands at 1,11,481. Active cases presently constitute 0.32 per cent of the country's total positive cases, the lowest since March 2020.

Also in the same period, a total of 11,57,697 tests were conducted across the country, pushing the total number to over 63.47 crore.

Meanwhile, the weekly positivity rate at 0.93 per cent has remained less than 2 per cent for the last 61 days now.

The daily positivity rate stands at 0.80 per cent, which has also remained below 2 per cent for last 51 days and less than 3 per cent for 86 consecutive days now.

With the administration of 76,58,203 vaccine doses in the last 24 hours, the country's overall inoculation coverage has reached 118.44 crore.

This has been achieved through 1,22,71,257 sessions.

More than 21.65 crore balance and unutilised vaccine doses are still available with the States/UTs, the Ministry said in a statement.

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.