COVID: India's active cases dip below four lakh

New Delhi: India logged 31,222 fresh cases of coronavirus infection taking the total tally of COVID-19 cases to 3,30,58,843, while the active cases were recorded below four lakh, according to the Union Health Ministry data updated on Tuesday.

The death toll has climbed to 4,41,042 with 290 fresh fatalities, of which 290 new fatalities include 135 from Kerala, and 37 from Maharashtra, according to the data updated at 8 am. The case fatality rate was recorded at 1.33 per cent.

The active cases have declined to 3,92,864 comprising 1.19 per cent of the total infections, while the national COVID-19 recovery rate was recorded at 97.48 per cent, the ministry said.

A decrease of 12,010 cases has been recorded in the active COVID-19 caseload in a span of 24 hours.

As many as 15,26,056 tests were conducted on Monday taking the total cumulative tests conducted so far for detection of COVID-19 in the country to 53,31,89,348.

The daily positivity rate was recorded as 2.05 per cent. It has been less than three per cent for last eight days while the weekly positivity rate was recorded at 2.56 per cent. It has been below three per cent for the last 74 days, the ministry said.

The number of people who have recuperated from the disease surged to 3,22,24,937.

With more than 1.13 crore vaccine doses administered in the last 24 hours, the cumulative doses administered in the country so far under the nationwide vaccination drive has reached 69.90 crore according to the ministry.

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.

A total of 4,41,042 deaths have been reported so far in the country including 1,37,811 from Maharashtra, 37,426 from Karnataka, 35,036 from Tamil Nadu, 25,082 from Delhi, 22,861 from Uttar Pradesh, 21,631 from Kerala and 18,515 from West Bengal.

The ministry stressed that more than 70 per cent of the deaths occurred due to comorbidities.

"Our figures are being reconciled with the Indian Council of Medical Research," the ministry said on its website, adding that state-wise distribution of figures is subject to further verification and reconciliation.

Meanwhile, the global coronavirus caseload has topped 221 million, while the deaths have surged to more than 4.57 million and vaccinations soared to over 5.48 billion, according to data updated by Johns Hopkins University.

In its latest update on Tuesday morning, the University's Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) revealed that the current global caseload, death toll and vaccination tally stood at 221,051,151, 4,574,419 and 5,489,941,974, respectively.

The US continues to be the worst-hit country with the world's highest number of cases and deaths at 40,018,268 and 649,319, respectively, according to the CSSE.

In terms of infections, India follows in the second place with 33,027,621 cases.

The other worst countries with over 3 million cases are Brazil (20,899,933), the UK (7,051,362), Russia (6,929,862), France (6,924,325), Turkey (6,412,247), Argentina (5,207,695), Iran (5,156,986), Colombia (4,919,773), Spain (4,887,112), Italy (4,574,787), Indonesia (4,133,433), Germany (4,020,587) and Mexico (3,428,384), the CSSE figures showed.

In terms of deaths, Brazil comes second with 583,810 fatalities.

Nations with a death toll of over 100,000 are India (440,752), Mexico (263,140), Peru (198,488), Russia (184,672), Indonesia (136,473), the UK (133,598), Italy (129,567), Colombia (125,331), France (115,563), Argentina (112,673) and Iran (111,257).