India reports 14,313 COVID-19 cases in a day, active cases go past 1.6 lakh

India reported 14,313 COVID-19 cases in the last 24 hours, taking the total number of active cases in the country to 1,61,555. According to the Union Health Ministry data uploaded on Saturday, India’s total COVID-19 tally rose to 3,42,60,470.

The death toll climbed to 4,57,740 with 549 more fatalities, according to the data updated at 8 am on Saturday (October 30).

The daily rise in new coronavirus infections has been below 30,000 for 36 straight days, and less than 50,000 daily new cases have been reported for 125 consecutive days.

“The active cases comprise 0.47 percent of the total infections, the lowest since March 2020, while the national COVID-19 recovery rate was recorded at 98.19 percent,” the ministry said.

An increase of 221 cases has been recorded in the active COVID-19 caseload, in a span of 24 hours.

The number of people who have recuperated from the disease surged to 3,36,41,175, while the case fatality rate has increased to 1.34 percent.

The daily positivity rate was recorded at 1.22 percent. It has been less than two percent for the last 26 days.

The weekly positivity rate was recorded at 1.18 percent. It has been below two percent for the last 36 days.

The cumulative doses administered in the country so far under the nationwide COVID-19 vaccination drive has exceeded 105.43 crore.

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India’s COVID-19 tally surpassed the one-crore mark on December 19 and crossed the grim milestone of two crore on May 4, and three crore on June 23.

The 549 new fatalities reported on Saturday include 471 from Kerala, and 36 from Maharashtra, which recorded 1,338 cases in the last 24 hours.

Kerala has been reconciling COVID-19 deaths since the last few days; hence, the death tally of the state is high. Kerala added 7,772 new COVID cases, pushing the case count to 49,44,857, while the number of deaths rose to 31,156 with 471 more deaths.

“Of the 471 deaths, 86 were reported in the last few days, 276 were those which were not confirmed until June 18 last year due to lack of adequate documentation, and 109 were designated as COVID-19 deaths after receiving appeals based on the new guidelines of the Centre and Supreme Court directions,” a state government release said on Friday.

A total of 4,57,740 deaths have been reported so far in the country, including 1,40,170 from Maharashtra, 38,061 from Karnataka, 36,083 from Tamil Nadu, 31,156 from Kerala, 25,091 from Delhi, 22,900 from Uttar Pradesh and 19,113 from West Bengal.

The Health Ministry stressed that more than 70 percent of the deaths occurred due to comorbidities.

(With inputs from Agencies)