The total number of persons in the country infected with the U.K. mutant strain of COVID-19 is 90, said a release issued by the Health Ministry on Saturday.
It added that India has recorded 228 COVID-19 fatalities in the past 24 hours, with Maharashtra reporting 73 deaths, Kerala seeing a fatality count of 23, followed by 21 deaths in West Bengal.
India also reported 18,222 COVID-19 cases during this time, and ten States/UTs have contributed 79.83% of the new cases. Kerala reported 5,142 cases in the last 24 hours. Maharashtra recorded 3,693 new cases, while Karnataka reported 970 daily cases noted the Ministry.
“India has demonstrated an exponential increase in the number of COVID-19 cumulative tests. It has crossed the landmark of 18 crore. In the last 24 hours 9,16,951 tests were conducted,” said the Ministry.
It noted that the progressive countrywide expansion in testing infrastructure played a crucial role in the steep rise of testing numbers. With 2,316 testing labs in the country, including 1,201 government laboratories and 1,115 private laboratories, daily testing capacity received a substantial boost.
“The high level of comprehensive testing on a sustained basis has also resulted in bringing down the national positivity rate,” said the Ministry.
According to data released by the Ministry, the cumulative rate continues to decline as total tests cross 18 crore. The national cumulative positivity rate is 5.79% currently, and it has fallen from 8.93% to 5.79% in a span of five months.
India also registered 19,253 new recoveries over the same duration, which has led to a further contraction of the active case load. India’s present active case load of 2,24,190 consists of 2.15% of India’s total positive cases.
The total recovered cases were at 10,056,651 on Saturday. The recovery rate has improved to 96.41%. Of the new recovered cases, 78.89% cases were contributed by ten States/UTs. Kerala saw 5,324 persons recovering from COVID-19. Maharashtra and West Bengal reported 2,890 and 1,136 new recoveries, respectively, said the Ministry.
