The country, for the first time in 81 days, recorded a daily number of less than 60,000 new COVID-19 infections on Sunday. This took India’s coronavirus case tally to 2,98,81,965, while the active cases further reduced to 7,29,243, according to the Union Health Ministry data.
While 58,419 fresh infections were reported in a day, the death toll climbed to 3,86,713 with 1,576 fresh fatalities, the lowest in 63 days.
The active cases further declined to 7,29,243 comprising 2.44 per cent of the total infections, while the national COVID-19 recovery rate improved to 96.27 per cent.
A net decline of 30,776 cases has been recorded in the COVID-19 caseload in a span of 24 hours. As many as 18,11,446 tests were conducted on Saturday, taking the total cumulative tests conducted so far for detection of COVID-19 in the country to 39,10,19,083.
The daily positivity rate was recorded at 3.22 per cent. It has been less than 5 per cent for 13 consecutive days, said health ministry data, adding the weekly positivity rate has declined to 3.43 per cent.
This is also the 38th consecutive day when recoveries outnumbered the daily new cases. The number of people who have recuperated from the disease surged to 2,87,66,009, while the case fatality rate stands at 1.29 per cent, the data stated.
Cumulatively, 27,66,93,572 COVID-19 vaccine doses have been administered so far.
Even as states are relaxing their lockdown restrictions, health experts caution governments against letting their guard down and instead focus on ensuring COVID appropriate behaviour and a strong vaccination programme. They say any laxity could result in an emergence of the third wave of the pandemic in the next two to three months.
The Centre on Sunday announced that while states already have 3.06 vaccines with them, another 34,53,080 doses will be despatched within the next three days. The government has promised to provide 13 crore doses to states by the end of July.
(With inputs from agencies)