Covid-19 updates: India records marginal decline with 44,877 cases

New Delhi: India had recorded 44,877 fresh COVID-19 cases in the last 24 hours, an 11 per cent decrease from yesterday when it was 50,407, NDTV reported.

While the daily test positivity rate also came down marginally to 3.17 per cent, the weekly positivity rate stands at 4.46 per cent. 1,17,591 people have been reported recovered in the last 24 hours, and the national recovery rate stands at 97.5 per cent. When the total caseload reached 4.26 crore, the total recovered was 4.15 crore. The total active cases now rest at 5,37,045. With 684 more deaths, the cumulative death count reached 5,08,665.

The country reached 172.81 crore doses yesterday.

On Saturday, Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya told reporters that immunisation for children between 5 and 15 would be started after the suggestions from experts arrived. At the moment, booster doses are being administered to frontline health workers and those above 60 with comorbidities. It was in January vaccination for the 15 to 18 age group was started.

Meanwhile, the election commission has eased restrictions in five poll-bound states citing improvement in the Covid-19 situations, The Indian Express reported. It allowed padayatras with a limited number of people and sanctioned more hours of campaigning in public. It said that campaigns can now be held between 6 am and 10 pm instead of the previous 8 am to 8 pm. But it insisted that all Covid-19 appropriate behaviour and protocols of state disaster management authorities must be followed.

Meanwhile, the Madhya Pradesh government allowed relatives of those imprisoned to meet them in jail, given the decline in Covid-19 cases. The state has banned visitors in prisons on January 5, citing the sudden surge in Omicron driven positive cases.