Covid-19 fourth wave scare: India logs 3,545 new cases, 27 deaths in last 24 hours

New Delhi: India recorded 3,545 fresh Covid-19 infections in the last 24 hours, as per the official data shared by the Ministry of Health on Friday morning. The country also recorded 27 Covid-related fatalities, bringing the total number of deaths to 5,24,002.

Meanwhile, India on Thursday had raised strong objections regarding the mathematical models used by the World Health Organization (WHO) to project excessively high death estimates linked to the coronavirus pandemic and said that the validity and robustness of the models used and the methodology of data collection are questionable. The WHO had on Thursday released a report that said 14.9 million people were killed either by Covid-19 directly or due to the pandemic's impact on health systems and society, with the global health agency estimating that India had 4.7 million fatalities.

According to the Health Ministry, the daily positivity rate stood at 1.07 percent, while the weekly positivity rate was 0.70 percent. The active caseload stands at 19,688. As per the official data, over 3,500 people have recovered from the Covid-19, taking the total number of recoveries to 4,25,51,248.

The active cases account for 0.05 percent of the total caseload, while the national Covid-19 recovery rate stands at 98.74 percent, the ministry said.

Additionally, the cumulative doses administered in the country so far under the nationwide Covid-19 vaccination drive have exceeded ​​​​189.81 crores. As many as 4,65,918 tests were conducted in the last 24 hours to detect the presence of the virus.

Meanwhile, 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.