A medic collects a swab sample from a passenger for a COVID-19 test at a railway station in Bhopal, January 4, 2022. Photo: PTI
New Delhi: In the last 24 hours, India has reported an increase of 58,097 new infections of the novel coronavirus – the highest since March 2021, just before the country’s devastating second COVID-19 outbreak took off.
The death toll climbed to 4,82,551, with 534 new fatalities.
All these figures are according to Union health ministry data updated at 8 am.
Of the total set of cases, 2,135 cases were of the omicron variant. Maharashtra reported the most new cases of this variant – 653 – followed by Delhi (464), Kerala (185), Rajasthan (174), Gujarat (154) and Tamil Nadu (121).
The total number of active cases has crossed 2 lakh for the first time in 81 days, and currently stands at 2,14,004. This is 0.61% of the infections. The national COVID-19 recovery rate stands at 98.01%.
The daily test positivity rate (TPR) for the nation was 4.18% and the weekly rate was 2.6%. A TPR higher than 5% is considered to be bad and a sign that a surge could be in the offing.
The total number of COVID-19 doses administered thus far is currently more than 147.72 crore.
India’s COVID-19 tally had crossed the 20-lakh mark on August 7, 2020, 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.
India crossed the grim milestone of two crore on May 4, 2021 and three crore on June 23.