New Delhi: For the first time since 23 August, active Covid cases in India fell below the 7-lakh mark.
At the same time, test positivity rate remained at a four-month low of 3.7 per cent, as India scaled up its testing in the last two days.
R value
The overall R value for India — a key parameter to measure the rate of an infection’s spread — fell further this week to 0.90, the lowest it has ever been since the beginning of the pandemic. The value has remained under 1 since 18 September.
Active cases
The number of active cases continues to decline and as of Friday, the country has 6,95,509 active cases of coronavirus.
This accounts for 8.96 per cent of the total Covid cases detected in the country so far.
Number of deaths
The number of deaths in the last 24 hours declined to 690 today from 702 yesterday, bringing the death toll to 1,17,306.
Mortality rate
Punjab’s case fatality rate — which is the highest in the country — continues to be 3.14. Maharashtra and Gujarat are the second- and third-worst performing states in terms of CFR. While Maharashtra’s CFR is about 2.64, Gujarat’s CFR stands at 2.24.
Kerala continues to maintain a very low CFR of 0.34, despite having the third-highest burden of active cases. The overall CFR for India has further decreased to about 1.51.
Daily tests
A total of 14,42,722 Covid-19 tests were carried out across 1,122 government laboratories and 867 private laboratories in the country in the last 24 hours.
This is the third-highest number of tests done in a single day over the course of the pandemic. The highest was on 24 September, when 14,92,409 tests were conducted over 24 hours. Yesterday, daily tests were the second-highest.
With 10,01,13,085 tests conducted in the country since the beginning of the pandemic, India’s testing numbers crossed the 10-crore mark today.
Positivity rate
For a second day in a row, the test positivity rate was 3.7 per cent, which is the lowest since June. Overall TPR, calculated since the beginning of the pandemic, fell further to 7.7 per cent.
Recovered cases
Over the last 24 hours, 73,979 Covid patients recovered in the country. This brings the total number of coronavirus recoveries in India to 69,48,497 — the highest in the world.
India’s recovery rate now stands at 89.53 per cent, it registered a slight increase from 89.20 per cent yesterday.
Total cases
As many as 54,366 people have tested positive for Covid-19 in the last 24 hours. This brings the total number of confirmed cases in India to 77,61,312, which is second only to the US.
High-burden states
In Maharashtra, a total of 16,25,197 Covid-19 cases have been reported since the beginning of the pandemic. Of these, 1,50,510 cases are now active.
The state reported 7,539 new Covid cases and 198 deaths in the last 24 hours. The state has the highest death toll in the country. As many as 42,831 people have died in the state from the disease, which accounts for more than one-third (36.5 percent) of the total deaths in the country.
Karnataka has reported a total of 7,88,551 Covid cases so far, of which 92,946 are currently active.
In the last 24 hours, 5,778 people have tested positive for Covid-19 in the state. As many as 74 people have died in the state of Covid-19, bringing the death toll to 10,770.
In Tamil Nadu, 3,077 fresh Covid-19 cases and 45 deaths were reported in the last 24 hours. The state has registered 7,00,193 confirmed coronavirus patients so far, of which 34,198 are active cases. As many as 10,825 people have died from the infection in the state.
Andhra Pradesh has 32,257 active Covid-19 cases so far. In the last 24 hours, 3,620 people in the state have tested positive for the disease, bringing the total number of confirmed cases in the state to 7,96,919.
As many as 16 people have died from Covid in the state in the last 24 hours, bringing the death toll to 6,524.
Uttar Pradesh has reported a total of 4,63,858 Covid-19 cases over the course of the pandemic, of which 2,383 people tested positive in the last 24 hours.
The state has 29,131 active cases. Over the last 24 hours, 35 people in the state have lost their lives to Covid-19, taking the state’s death toll to 6,790.
Tests and positive cases
Over the last 24 hours, Maharashtra’s test positivity rate reduced marginally to 10.06 per cent from 10.6 per cent yesterday. While this is a marked improvement, a TPR of above 10 per cent indicates that the state is not conducting enough tests.
Uttar Pradesh continues to have the lowest TPR among the high-burden states at 1.5 per cent.