COVID: India shows declining trend of active cases

New Delhi: India logged 34,973 new coronavirus infections taking the total tally of COVID-19 cases to 3,31,74,954, while the active cases declined to 3,90,646, according to the Union Health Ministry data updated on Friday.

According to the data updated at 8 am today, the death toll climbed to 4,42,009 with 260 fresh fatalities, in which 125 from Kerala and 55 from Maharashtra.The data shows that Maharashtra has reconciled the data leading to a decrease in total number of cases and discharges as compared to Thursday.

The active cases comprise 1.18 per cent of the total infections, while the national COVID-19 recovery rate was recorded at 97.49 per cent, the ministry said.

A reduction of 2,968 cases has been recorded in the active COVID-19 caseload in a span of 24 hours.

As many as 17,87,611 tests were conducted on Thursday taking the total cumulative tests conducted so far for detection of COVID-19 in the country to 53,86,04,854.

The daily positivity rate was recorded 1.96 per cent. It has been less than three per cent for last 11 days The weekly positivity rate was recorded at 2.31 per cent. It has been below three per cent for the last 77 days, according to the ministry.

The number of people who have recuperated from the disease surged to 3,23,42,299, while the case fatality rate was recorded at 1.33 per cent.

The cumulative doses administered in the country so far under the nationwide vaccination drive has exceeded 72.37 crore.

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 4,42,009 deaths have been reported so far in the country including 1,38,017 from Maharashtra, 37,462 from Karnataka, 35,094 from Tamil Nadu, 25,083 from Delhi, 22,863 from Uttar Pradesh, 22,126 from Kerala and 18,539 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 223 million, while the deaths have surged to more than 4.60 million and vaccinations soared to over 5.59 billion, according to the Johns Hopkins University.

In its latest update on Friday morning, the University's Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) revealed that the current global caseload, death toll and vaccination tally stood at 223,100,992, 4,604,426 and 5,597,039,397, respectively.

The US continues to be the worst-hit country with the world's highest number of cases and deaths at 40,600,763 and 654,576 respectively, according to the CSSE.

In terms of infections, India follows in the second place with 33,139,981 cases.

The other worst countries with over 3 million cases are Brazil (20,958,899), the UK (7,165,121), Russia (6,982,628), France (6,962,917), Turkey (6,590,384), Iran (5,237,799), Argentina (5,218,993), Colombia (4,925,000), Spain (4,903,021), Italy (4,590,941), Indonesia (4,153,355), Germany (4,058,956) and Mexico (3,465,171), the CSSE figures showed.

In terms of deaths, Brazil comes second with 585,174 fatalities.

Nations with a death toll of over 100,000 are India (441,749), Mexico (265,420), Peru (198,621), Russia (186,999), Indonesia (138,116), the UK (134,166), Italy (129,766), Colombia (125,480), France (115,938), Argentina (113,099) and Iran (112,935).