8 new COVID-19 cases push Andamans tally to 7,615

Port Blair: Andaman and Nicobar Islands reported eight new COVID-19 infections, three more than the previous day's count, which pushed the number of active cases in the union territory to 20, a health official said on Thursday.

All the eight new cases were detected during testing at the Veer Savarkar Airport here, he said.

Passengers arriving by flight have to undergo a mandatory RT-PCR test at the airport before they are allowed entry into the islands.

The eight new COVID-19 cases pushed the tally to 7,615 of which 7,466 people have recovered from the disease, including five on Wednesday, he said.

The COVID-19 death toll remained at 129 as no fresh fatality due to the contagion was reported in the last 24 hours.

The union territory administration has so far tested 5,37,184 samples for COVID-19 and the cumulative test positivity rate is 1.42 per cent, he said.

A total of 4,29,830 beneficiaries have been inoculated so far, of which 2,87,442 have received the first dose of COVID-19 vaccine and 1,42,388 have received both doses of the vaccine, the official said, adding that the total population of the union territory is around four lakh.