New Delhi: For the second time this week, the number of new Covid-19 cases detected over the last 24 hours dipped to below 23,000 Friday. This also coincided with the five-month low in test positivity rate to two per cent.
The R value, which is measure of how fast the infection is spreading, also dipped to its lowest since the pandemic began. Through the week, the number of deaths reported daily has remained below 400.
R value
The effective reproduction number (R) for Covid-19 in India has fallen to 0.86, the lowest since the coronavirus pandemic hit India. R is an indicator of how fast an infection is spreading, and needs to remain below one for a period of time, for an epidemic to end.
Daily cases
In the last 24 hours, 22,890 new cases of Covid-19 were detected across the country. This is the second time in a week that the number of new cases in one day has dropped to below 23,000.
Active cases
Active cases in the country fell to 3,13,831 Friday. This is the lowest since 13 July, when active cases were at 3,01,609.
Number of deaths
In the last 24 hours, 338 Covid-19 deaths were reported from across the country. This brings the coronavirus death toll, since the beginning of the pandemic, to 1,44,789.
Mortality rate
Punjab’s case fatality rate (CFR) is at 3.18, which is the highest in the country. Meanwhile, Maharashtra — the state with the highest number of Covid-19 deaths — has the second highest CFR of 2.57.
Sikkim follows Maharashtra with the CFR of 2.25. India’s overall case fatality rate is now 1.45.
Daily tests
In the last 24 hours, 11,13,406 Covid-19 tests were conducted across 1,194 government and 1,065 private laboratories. Since the beginning of the pandemic, a total of 15,89,18,646 Covid-19 tests have been carried out.
Positivity rate
The test positivity rate remained 2.0 per cent Friday, the lowest in five months. The overall positivity rate, calculated since the beginning of the pandemic, decreased further to 6.2 per cent.
Recovered cases
As many as 95,20,827 people in India have recovered from Covid-19 infection, bringing India’s recovery rate to 95.40 per cent.
In the last 24 hours, 31,087 Covid-19 patients were discharged from across the country.
Total cases
The total number of Covid-19 cases detected in India so far is 99,79,447, which is the second only to the US.
States with the highest active cases
Maharashtra’s total case count on the health ministry website has not changed in the last three days. On its website, the health ministry said that updated figures for Maharashtra are awaited “due to the data reconciliation activity by the state”.
However, the state’s public health department reports that 3,880 people tested positive for the disease in the last 24 hours, bringing the total number of cases detected in the state to 18,84,773.
Active cases in Maharashtra dipped to 60,905 Friday. With 65 deaths reported in the last 24 hours, the state’s Covid-19 death toll climbed to 48,499.
Kerala saw a dip in the number of new Covid-19 cases in the last 24 hours to 4,969, a day after over 6,000 new cases were reported. However, active cases in the state increased further to 58,311.
So far, Kerala reported a total of 6,88,409 cases of Covid-19, of which 2,734 have succumbed to the infection. In the last 24 hours, the state reported 27 deaths.
In West Bengal, 2,245 new cases have been reported in the last 24 hours, which brings the total number of cases detected from the state to 5,30,456.
Of these, 19,597 are active cases, while 9,235 people have died so far from Covid-19. In the last 24 hours, 44 Covid-19 deaths were reported from the state.
In Uttar Pradesh, active case count fell to 18,150 Friday. With 1,526 people testing positive for Covid-19 in the last 24 hours, the total number of cases detected in the state rose to 5,70,789.
Meanwhile, 18 Covid-19 deaths were reported in the state in the last 24 hours, bringing UP’s Covid death toll to 8,136.
With 17,407 active Covid-19 cases, Chhattisgarh has the fifth-highest active case count. In the last 24 hours, 1,584 new cases and 11 Covid-19 deaths were reported in the state.
The state has had 2,63,485 coronavirus cases since the beginning of the pandemic.