2.35 Lakh New Covid Cases In India, 613 Deaths In 24 Hours

India’s daily Covid curve showed marginal improvement today as the country reported 2.35 lakh cases, which is around 6 per cent lower than yesterday. As many as 871 people have died during the past 24-hour period, according to the Health Ministry.

Here are the top 10 updates on this big story:

The active now comprises 4.91 per cent of the total infections, while the national COVID-19 recovery rate has decreased to 93.89 per cent. 400 districts have logged over 10 per cent positivity rate in the week ending January 26.

India’s COVID-19 vaccination coverage has crossed 164.04 crore doses. Ninety five per cent of India’s eligible adult population has been administered the first dose of Covid vaccine while 74 per cent are fully inoculated.

4.93 lakh people have died in the country due to the virus so far. The 871 deaths include the 258 casualties reported as backlog by Kerala. 613 people have died during the last 24 hours.

Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya will virtually review the Covid situation, public health preparedness as well as response measures being taken in the context of the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2 in Bihar, Odisha, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Chhattisgarh today at 3 pm. Earlier on Friday, Mr Mandaviya, during a high-level meeting with Southern states and UT’s Health Minister’s, had stressed upon e-Sanjeevani, teleconsultation, Monitoring home isolation and increasing RTPCR in States which are reporting lower percentage testing.

Maharashtra saw the sharpest surge in daily Covid deaths since October 6 – 103 patients died in the last 24 hours in the state with the highest overall cases in the country (76,55,554). The state recorded a positivity rate of 10.32 per cent, lesser than the national average (15.88 per cent). With 24,948 new infections, the state’s daily surge was marginally lower than the day before (25,425).

Delhi continues to register a decline in its daily COVID-19 caseload as it reported 4,044 new infections during the last 24 hours. The positivity rate was 8.60 per cent. The city has 29,152 active COVID-19 cases of which 23,153 are currently in home isolation.

In the south, Omicron has become the dominant strain in Karnataka with 67.5 per cent of the samples testing positive for the variant. On the contrary, the Delta variant, which was more dominant during the second wave with a 90.7 per cent positivity rate of the sample, has now become less dominant with a 26 per cent positivity rate. With 31,198 fresh cases, the state’s COVID-19 caseload reached 37,23,694, while 50 deaths took the number of deaths to 38,804.

The number of fresh cases in Kerala continued to rise unabated, with the state reporting 54,537 cases on Friday taking the infection count to 58,81,133. According to the health department, 352 deaths were reported, pushing the death toll to 52,786.

Covid cases have dipped in rest of Northeast except for Mizoram. The northeastern state has reported 2,143 new infections, recording a positivity rate of nearly 30 per cent. Yesterday the state had reported 2,064 new COVID-19 cases.

The world recorded more than two million daily coronavirus cases on average between January 1 and 7 with figures doubling in 10 days, news agency AFP reported. The virus has killed over 5.4 million people since the outbreak emerged in China in December 2019.