Coronavirus / India sees 46,759 new COVID-19 cases, over 70% reported from Kerala

New Delhi: India recorded 46,759 new cases of coronavirus disease (Covid-19) in the last 24 hours, which pushed the nationwide tally to 32,649,947, while the death toll climbed to 437,370 with 509 daily fatalities, according to the Union ministry of health and family welfare on Saturday. This is the third consecutive day that India is seeing more than 40,000 daily Covid-19 cases.

Union health secretary Rajesh Bhushan has asked Kerala and Maharashtra to consider night curfews in areas with high infection numbers. The southern state logged 32,801 cases on Friday, up from 30,007 on Thursday and the test positivity rate stood at 19.22 per cent, an increase from 18.03 per cent on August 26. Kerala has accounted for more than half of the total active cases, followed by 16 per cent in Maharashtra.

Active cases rose by 14,876 to stand at 359,775 in the same period, according to data released by the health ministry at 8am. Active cases constitute 1.06 per cent of total cases, the lowest since March 2020, and the national Covid-19 recovery rate stands 97.6 per cent, the Union health ministry said.

As many as 17,61,110 Covid-19 tests were conducted on Friday, taking the total number of tests conducted so far to 51,68,87,602. The number of people who have recuperated from the disease surged to 31,852,802 while the case fatality rate stands at 1.34 per cent, it said.

Meanwhile, India on Friday administered more than 10 million doses of the Covid-19 vaccine in a single day across the nation for the first time since the start of the mass inoculation programme on January 16, according to data on the Union health ministry’s Co-WIN dashboard. “Record vaccination numbers today! Crossing 1 crore is a momentous feat. Kudos to those getting vaccinated and those making the vaccination drive a success,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted on Friday night.

More than 40.5 million Covid-19 vaccine doses are still available with states and Union territories for inoculation, the Union health ministry said on Friday. Over 588.6 million vaccine doses have been provided to the states and Union Territories so far, the ministry said in a statement.

The Covid-19 vaccination drive has been ramped up through the availability of more vaccines, advanced visibility of vaccine availability to states and Union Territories for enabling better planning by them and streamlining the vaccine supply chain. The new phase of universalisation of vaccination commenced on June 21.