India reports 2,796 COVID deaths as Bihar, Kerala reconcile data

India saw a single-day rise of 2,796 COVID-19 fatalities, with Bihar carrying out a reconciliation exercise of its data, pushing the country’s death toll to 4,73,326, while 8,895 new infections were reported, according to health ministry data updated on Sunday.

India’s total tally of COVID-19 cases has increased to 3,46,33,255, according to the data updated at 8am.

India had recorded a single-day rise of 3,998 fatalities on July 21 after Maharashtra carried out the 14th reconciliation exercise of its data.

As for a high 2,796 fatalities, the ministry said 2,426 reconciled deaths by Bihar were adjusted in Sunday’s database. Kerala also cleared a backlog of 263 deaths. Hence the spike in toll.

The daily rise in new coronavirus infections has been less than 50,000 for 161 consecutive days now.

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The active cases stand at 99,155, comprising 0.29 per cent of the total infections, the lowest since March 2020. The national COVID-19 recovery rate was recorded at 98.35 per cent, the ministry said.

A decrease of 819 cases has been recorded in the active caseload in a span of 24 hours, it said.

The daily positivity rate was recorded at 0.73 per cent. It has been less than 2 per cent for the past 62 days.

The weekly positivity rate was recorded at 0.80 per cent. It has remained below 1 per cent for the last 21 days, according to the ministry.

The number of people who have recuperated from the disease has surged to 3,40,60,774 while the case fatality rate has increased to 1.37 per cent.

The cumulative COVID-19 vaccine doses administered in the country so far has exceeded 127.61 crore.

India’s COVID-19 tally had crossed the 20-lakh mark on August 7, 2020, 30 lakh on August 23, 40 lakh on September 5 and 50 lakh on September 16. It went past 60 lakh on September 28, 70 lakh on October 11, crossed 80 lakh on October 29, 90 lakh on November 20 and surpassed the one-crore mark on December 19.

India crossed two crore cases on May 4 and three crore on June 23.