India logs 258,089 new Covid-19 cases, positivity rate rises to 19.65%

A day after recording a massive spike, India’s daily Covid-19 tally dropped slightly with 258,089 fresh cases in the last 24 hours, taking the cumulative caseload to over 37.3 million, the Union health ministry data showed on Monday. The death toll, on the other hand, continued on an upward trajectory with as many as 385 people dying of the disease in a day.

Of these, there were a total of 8,209 cases of the Omicron variant, which is now present in all 29 states and union territories.

The highest number of cases of the new variant were recorded at 1,738 from Maharashtra, followed by 1,672 from West Bengal.

The country’s active cases now stands at 16,56,341, which is 4.43 per cent of the total infections. The daily positivity rate increased to 19.65 per cent, while the weekly positivity rate stood at 14.41 per cent. The daily positivity count showed nearly a 4 per cent rise from yesterday’s 16.28 per cent.

Meanwhile, 1,51,740 recoveries in the last 24 hours took the total recoveries to 3,52,37,461. India’s recovery rate now stands at 94.27 per cent.

A total of 703.7 million Covid tests have been conducted so far, including 13,13,444 tests in the last 24 hours. As many as 1.57 billion vaccine doses have been administered under the nationwide vaccination drive.

Source: Hindustan Times