With 67,597 new cases, India's Covid tally remains below 1 lakh mark

India on Tuesday saw a single-day rise of 67,597 new coronavirus infections, raising its tally to 4,23,39,611, while the active cases fell below 10 lakh after around 27 days. The positivity rate has gone down to 5%.

India's active caseload, which has come down significantly in the last few days, currently stands at 9,94,891. Of the total Covid infections in India, active cases stand at 2.35%.

Top five states which have registered maximum cases are Kerala with 22,524 cases, followed by Maharashtra with 6,436 cases, Karnataka with 6,151 cases, Tamil Nadu with 5,104 cases and Madhya Pradesh with 3,945 cases.

The five states account for 65.33 per cent of the new cases, with Kerala alone responsible for 33.32 per cent of the new cases.

As many as 1,188 deaths were reported in the country in the last 24 hours, increasing the total reported death count to 5,04,062.

With reopening of schools raising concern over the safety of children below 15 years of age, Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya on Tuesday said in the Rajya Sabha that the government will take a decision to vaccinate this group based on suggestions of an expert group.

The government has constituted an expert group to give suggestions on which age group to be given Covid-19 vaccine first and accordingly vaccination for the 15-18 age group is underway, he said during the Question Hour.

The expert group meets regularly and gives suggestions based on which the government takes action, news agency PTI quoted him as saying.

The recovery rate currently at 96.46%. There were 1,80,456 recoveries in the last 24 hours.

India's daily positivity rate has come down to 5.02%. The weekly positivity rate stands at 8,30%.

India conducted 13,46,534 Covid tests conducted in the last 24 hours.

After a surge of infections in January led by the new Covid variant Omicron, cases are on a decline in several states in India.