India Covid-19 cases: Daily caseload drops to 149,394; total deaths top 500,000

Covid-19 cases in India: A day ago, the country logged 172,433 fresh infections, 13 per cent higher than the latest single-day rise. Total recoveries, meanwhile, have crossed the 400,000-mark.

India's daily Covid-19 cases saw a significant dip on Friday, with as many as 149,394 more people testing positive for the viral illness, data released by the Union health ministry showed. This is 13 per cent higher than Thursday, when the daily infection tally stood at 172,433. The related toll, meanwhile, rose by 1072 deaths, as against 1008 a day ago, the bulletin showed.

A healthcare worker collects swab samples for Covid-19 test of passengers arriving on outstation trains, at Dadar station, in Mumbai, India, on Thursday. (Bhushan Koyande/ HT Photo)

With this, the cumulative infection tally stands at 41,952,712, including 500,055 fatalities. India is now the third country, after the United States (896,557) and Brazil (630,301) where more than 500,000 people have succumbed due to this virus.

The overall caseload also includes a total of 40,017,088 recoveries, of which 246,674 patients recuperated in the last 24 hours. Total active cases are at 1,435,569, a fall of 98,352 infections.

Recoveries, active cases and deaths constitute 95.39 per cent, 3.42 per cent and 1.19 per cent of the cumulative tally, respectively.

On the vaccination front, nearly 1.7 billion doses of Covid-19 vaccines have been administered since the nationwide inoculation drive began on January 16 last year. Of these, as many as 5,558,760 were administered in the last 24 hours, the health ministry bulletin showed.