India's COVID death count nearing to 3 lakh-mark

New Delhi: India's COVID death count is nearing the 3 lakh-mark, while while 2.4 lakh new cases and 3,741 deaths were reported in the last 24 hours. The daily rise in coronavirus cases in the country remained below the 3 lakh-mark for the seventh consecutive day, said the Union Health Ministry on Sunday.

With the fresh cases, India's tally of COVID-19 cases climbed to 2,65,30,132. The death toll due to the disease rose to 2,99,266, the ministry data updated at 8 am showed. The active cases further reduced to 28,05,399 comprising 10.57 per cent of the total infections, while the national COVID-19 recovery rate improved to 88.30 per cent.

Eight states in the country have more than 1 lakh active cases, the Health Ministry said last evening. While 20 states have less than 50,000 active cases, the active caseload is between 50,000-1,00,000 in eight states.

The number of people who have recuperated from the disease in the country surged to 2,34,25,467 while the case fatality rate stood at 1.13 per cent, the data stated. According to the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), 32,86,07,937 samples have been tested for COVID-19 up to May 22 with 21,23,782 samples tested on Saturday.

The government on Saturday evening said that the country has been witnessing a drop in positivity rate for the last two weeks. 18 states presently have a positivity rate of more than 15 per cent. Fourteen states have a positivity rate between 5-15 per cent; four states have a positivity rate less than 5 per cent.

The 3,741 new fatalities include 682 from Maharashtra, 448 from Tamil Nadu, 451 from Karnataka, 218 from Uttar Pradesh, 201 from Punjab, 182 from Delhi, 176 from Kerala, 154 from West Bengal, 134 from Uttarakhand, 118 from Andhra Pradesh, 115 from Rajasthan, 103 from Chhattisgarh and 98 from Haryana. While Maharashtra, the state with highest overall caseload is on path to recovery, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu have been witnessing a worrying surge in cases.

A total of 2,99,266 deaths have been reported so far in the country, including 87,300 from Maharashtra, 24,658 from Karnataka, 23,013 from Delhi, 20,046 from Tamil Nadu, 18,978 from Uttar Pradesh, 14,208 from West Bengal, 13,089 from Punjab and 12,494 from Chhattisgarh, the ministry said.

Among the states, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka have extended lockdown to check the spread of Covid. Many states are under tough restrictions to break the chain of transmission.

The health ministry stressed that more than 70 per cent of the deaths occurred due to comorbidities. Black Fungus or Mucormycosis in Covid patients has emerged as a big concern in India's fight against coronavirus. Nearly 9,000 patients have been affected so far, the centre has said, underlining that it's trying to ramp up production of medicine required.

As many states look for ways to pace up vaccination drive, the government on Saturday said nearly 2.67 Lakh doses, in addition, will be received by the states and union territories in the next three days. "So far, 21 crore doses have been provided free of cost to states and union territories," the Health Ministry said

Vaccine wastage of Serum Institute of India's Covishield has come down from 8 per cent to 1 per cent and Bharat Biotech's Covaxin has come down from 17 per cent to 4 per cent, the Health Ministry has said.

Mumbai's vaccination centres will remain shut today. Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Saturday said that the national capital has paused roll out for 18-44 age group due to shortage of doses.

India's COVID-19 tally had crossed the 20 lakh-mark on August 7 last, 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 last year.India crossed the grim milestone of 2 crore on May 4 this year.