New Delhi: India's Covid tally climbed to 4,28,02,505 on Saturday with 22,270 more people testing positive for the viral disease, while the number of active cases came down to 2,53,739, according to Union Health ministry data.
The death toll reached 5,11,230 with 325 fresh fatalities, the data updated at 8 am stated.
Daily cases in the country have remained below one lakh for 13 consecutive days now.
The 2,53,739 active cases comprise 0.59 per cent of the total infections. The national Covid recovery rate has further improved to 98.21 per cent, the ministry said. A reduction of 38,353 cases has been recorded in the active Covid caseload in a span of 24 hours. The daily positivity rate was recorded at 1.80 per cent, while the weekly positivity rate was recorded at 2.50 per cent, the ministry said. The number of people who have recuperated from the disease surged to 4,20,37,536. The case fatality rate stood at 1.19 per cent, it said.
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.
The 325 new fatalities include 191 from Kerala and 19 from Karnataka.
The 5,11,230 deaths reported so far in the country include 1,43,547 from Maharashtra, 63,529 from Kerala, 39,757 from Karnataka, 37,970 from Tamil Nadu, 26,095 from Delhi, 23,424 from Uttar Pradesh and 21,107 from West Bengal.
The Uttar Pradesh government has decided to lift the Coronavirus-induced night curfew as the state witnesses a sustained decline in cases.
The night curfew hours in the state was between 10 pm to 6 am, which was relaxed by an hour from February 13.
Additional Chief Secretary (Home) Awanish Awasthi said the decision to end night curfew from tonight itself was taken in view of the decline in COVID-19 cases.
Meanwhile, the Covid cases in China's many provinces and cities, including Heilongjiang have been rising despite Beijing's claim of "Zero COVID-19 Policy" in the country. According to media reports, the Covid outbreak in Beijing, Heilongjiang and several other cities is still not under control, while the infection cases in nine cities - Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Yunfu, Huizhou, Heyuan, Meizhou, Baise, Nanning and Shaoyang — and inside three southern provinces of China — Guangdong, Guangxi and Hunan — is growing at a rapid rate.
This highlights the risk of another outbreak of the pandemic due to the huge mobility of the people during China's Spring festival.
Wang Guangfa, a respiratory expert at Peking University First Hospital, had told the Global Times that this year's Spring Festival travel rush comes amid sporadic outbreaks, similar to last year.
The huge flow of passengers would certainly increase the risk of Covid spreading. Affected by the domestic Covid flare-ups, many people couldn't manage to get back home and decided to stay put.