COVID: Active cases in India decline to 1,44,845, lowest in 260 days

New Delhi: India saw a single-day rise of 10,853 COVID-19 infections, which took the country's total tally of cases to 3,43,55,536, while active cases have declined to 1,44,845, the lowest in 260 days, according to Union health ministry data updated on Sunday.

The death toll has climbed to 4,60,791 with 526 more fatalities, according to the data updated at 8 am.

The daily rise in new coronavirus infections has been below 20,000 for 30 straight days and less than 50,000 daily new cases have been reported for 133 consecutive days now, the ministry said.

The active cases have declined to 1,44,845, comprising 0.42 per cent of the total infections, the lowest since March last year, while the national COVID-19 recovery rate has been recorded at 98.24 per cent, the highest since March last year, it said.

The data stated that a decrease of 2,105 cases has been recorded in active COVID-19 cases in a span of 24 hours.

The daily positivity rate has been recorded at 1.18 per cent. It has been less than two per cent for the last 34 days.

The weekly positivity rate has been recorded at 1.28 per cent. It has been below two per cent for the last 44 days, according to the health ministry.

The number of people, who have recuperated from the disease, has increased to 3,37,49,900, while the case fatality rate has been recorded at 1.34 per cent, the data stated.

The cumulative doses administered so far under the nationwide COVID-19 vaccination drive has exceeded 108.21 crore.

India's COVID-19 tally had crossed the 20-lakh mark on August 7 last year, 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 two crore cases on May 4 and three crore cases on June 23.

The 526 new fatalities include 467 from Kerala, 14 from West Bengal and 10 each from Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu, the ministry said.

It said 4,60,791 deaths have been reported so far in the country including 1,40,372 from Maharashtra, 38,107 from Karnataka, 36,214 from Tamil Nadu, 33,515 from Kerala, 25,091 from Delhi, 22,903 from Uttar Pradesh and 19,215 from West Bengal.

The health ministry said that more than 70 per cent of 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.

Meanwhile, the global coronavirus caseload has topped 249.5 million, while the deaths have surged to more than 5.04 million and vaccinations soared to over 7.22 billion, according to Johns Hopkins University.

In its latest update on Sunday morning, the University's Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) revealed that the current global caseload, death toll and the total number of vaccine doses administered stood at 249,502,872, 5,043,945 and 7,226,106,343, respectively.

The US continues to be the worst-hit country with the world's highest number of cases and deaths at 46,461,564 and 754,278, according to the CSSE.

In terms of infections, India follows in second place with 34,344,683 cases and Brazil third with 21,874,324 infections.

The other worst countries with over 3 million cases are the UK (9,317,072), Russia (8,613,533), Turkey (8,206,345), France (7,301,303), Iran (5,973,457), Argentina (5,295,260), Spain (5,025,639), Colombia (5,010,982), Italy (4,795,465), Germany (4,759,880), Indonesia (4,247,320), Mexico (3,818,216), Ukraine (3,200,411) and Poland (3,076,518), the CSSE figures showed.

Nations with a death toll of over 100,000 are Brazil (609,388), India (460,265), Mexico (289,131), Russia (241,095), Peru (200,350), Indonesia (143,519), the UK (142,174), Italy (132,334), Colombia (127,456), Iran (127,053), France (118,830) and Argentina (116,083).