India logs 7,974 new Covid-19 cases, 14.2% higher than yesterday

New Delhi: India on Thursday registered 7,974 new Covid-19 cases and 343 deaths, the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare said.

Top five states which registered maximum cases are Kerala with 4,006 cases, followed by Maharashtra with 925 cases, Tamil Nadu with 640 cases, West Bengal with 554 cases and Karnataka with 317 cases. 80.8 per cent of the new cases are reported from these five states, with Kerala alone responsible for 50.24 per cent of the new cases.

At least 343 deaths were reported in the country in the last 24 hours, increasing the total reported death count to 4,76,478. Maximum casualties were reported in Kerala (282), followed by West Bengal with 13 daily deaths.

The recovery of 7,948 patients in the last 24 hours has increased the cumulative tally to 3,41,54,879. Consequently, India's recovery rate stands at 98.38 per cent, the highest since March 2020.

India's active caseload presently stands at 87,245. Active cases constitute 0.25 per cent of the country's total positive cases, which is lowest since March 2020.

Also in the same period, a total of 12,16,011 tests were conducted across the country, taking the total to 66.02 crore .

Meanwhile, the weekly positivity rate at 0.64 per cent has remained less than 1 per cent for the last 32 days now.

The daily positivity rate at 0.57 per cent has also remained below 2 per cent for last 73 days and less than 3 per cent for 108 consecutive days now.

With the administration of 60,12,425 vaccine doses in the last 24 hours, India's Covid inoculation coverage has reached 135.25 crore as of Thursday morning.

This has been achieved through 1,41,93,269 sessions.

According to the Ministry, more than 16.42 crore balance and unutilised Covid vaccine doses are currently available with the states and UTs.