With 18,732 COVID cases, India's daily count dips to six-month low

India witnessed the lowest daily rise in fresh coronavirus cases in nearly six months on Sunday with 18,732 people testing positive in the last 24 hours.

So far, a total of 97,61,538 people have recovered from the disease taking the national recovery rate to 95.82 per cent, according to the health ministry’s Sunday data.

In the last 24 hours, 279 COVID deaths were also reported from across the country, pushing the virus death toll to 1,47,622, it showed.

The number of new daily cases last reported a dip on July 1 when 18,653 cases were registered. The COVID-19 case fatality rate was registered at 1.44 per cent. There are 2,78,690 active cases of coronavirus infection in the country which comprises 2.73 per cent of the total caseload, the data stated.

According to the ICMR, a cumulative total of 16,81,02,657 samples have been tested up to December 26 with 9,43,368 samples being tested on Saturday.

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India’s COVID-19 tally had crossed the 20-lakh mark on August 7, 30 lakh on August 23 and 40 lakh on September 5. It went past 50 lakh on September 16, 60 lakh on September 28, 70 lakh on October 11 and crossed 80 lakh on October 29 and 90 lakh on November 20.

The 279 new fatalities include 60 from Maharashtra,  23 from Delhi, 33 from West Bengal, 21 from Kerala, 14 from Uttar Pradesh, 13 from Uttarakhand and 12 each from Punjab and Chattisgarh.

A total of 1,47,622 deaths have been reported so far in the country including 49,189 from Maharashtra followed by 12,051 from Karnataka, 12,059 from Tamil Nadu, 10,437 from Delhi, 9,569 from West Bengal, 8,293 from Uttar Pradesh, 7,092 from Andhra Pradesh, 5,281 from Punjab and 4,275 from Gujarat.

The health ministry stressed that more than 70 per cent of the deaths occurred due to comorbidities. “Our figures are being reconciled with the Indian Council of Medical Research,” the ministry said on its website, adding that state-wise distribution of figures is subject to further verification and reconciliation.