India's daily Covid tally crosses 2.5 lakh cases, 627 fatalities

New Delhi: India reported 2,51,209 lakh new COVID-19 cases today, taking the total number of infections in the country to 4,06,22,709. The new cases reported were 12% lower than yesterday's daily spike of 2.86 lakh cases.

The country also recorded 627 new deaths, taking the total number of Covid-related fatalities to 4,92,327.

The top five states which registered the maximum cases are Kerala with 51,739 cases, followed by Karnataka with 38,083 cases, Tamil Nadu with 28,515 cases, Maharashtra with 25,425 cases and Andhra Pradesh with 13,474 cases.

As many as 62.59 per cent of the new cases are reported from these five states, with Kerala alone responsible for 20.6 per cent of the new cases.

Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya will on Friday hold a review meeting with health ministers of southern states on the Covid-19 situation in their respective states. The health ministers of Kerala, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, and Telangana will take part in the meeting.

There are presently 21 lakh active cases in the country. The active cases now comprise 5.18 per cent of the total infections, while the national COVID-19 recovery rate has marginally increased to 93.6 per cent. The daily positivity rate - the share of coronavirus tests that return positive and considered a key marker of the pandemic's status - is down from 19.59% to 15.88% while the weekly positivity rate was recorded at 17.47 per cent.

India's COVID-19 vaccination coverage has crossed 164.4 crore doses. 89.1 crore first doses have been administered while 69.9 crore second doses have been provided.