India recorded less than 300 daily deaths in last 7 days: Govt

India has reported less than 300 deaths related to the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) every day since the last one week, the government said on Friday, as 256 fatalities were logged from across the country in 24 hours. The deaths between Thursday and Friday morning has taken the second-worst affected country’s toll rose to 148,994, the health ministry added on the first day of the New Year.

The Union health ministry also said 10 states and Union territories account for 80.47% of the new deaths and that Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Delhi account for 63% of total fatalities in the country. According to the health ministry, out of the 148,994 deaths, 49,521 have been in Maharashtra, 12,122 in Tamil Nadu, 12,090 in Karnataka, 10,536 in Delhi, 9,712 in West Bengal, 8,364 in Uttar Pradesh, 7,108 in Andhra Pradesh and 5,341 fatalities in Punjab so far.

“Daily deaths have been less than 300 since the last 7 days. This has ensured that the mortality remains low and presently stands at 1.45%,” the Union ministry of health and family welfare said. “Maharashtra saw the maximum casualties (58). Kerala and West Bengal follow with 30 and 29 daily deaths, respectively,” it added.

India’s active caseload also continued to “exhibit a sustained downward movement”, the ministry said. It has significantly dropped to 254,254 on Friday-the lowest after 179 days. The total active cases were 253,287 on July 6, 2020. India’s present active caseload consists of just 2.47% of India’s total positive cases. “80.19% of the new cases are concentrated in 10 States and UTs. Kerala reported the highest daily new cases at 5,215. It is followed by Maharashtra with 3,509 new cases,” it said.

The daily Covid-10 infections also remained below 30,000 for the 19th consecutive day as the tally rose to 10,286,709 with 20,035 cases in the last 24 hours. The daily new cases in India in recent days have been around 20,000. The ministry said that 23,181 Covid-19 patients recovered in the last 24 hours, adding that “recoveries outnumbering daily new cases from the last 35 days have ensured a consistent decline in active cases.”

The total recoveries are at 9,883,461 and the gap between recovered and active cases, that is steadily increasing, has crossed 9.6 million and presently stands at 9,629,207 pushing the national recovery rate to 96.08 per cent. The ministry said that 77.61% of the new recovered cases are observed to be concentrated in 10 states and Union territories. “Kerala has reported the maximum number of single-day recoveries with 5,376 newly recovered cases. 3,612 people recovered in Maharashtra followed by 1,537 in West Bengal,” it said.

The new numbers come on a day the subject expert committee (SEC) under the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO) will meet to consider the emergency-use authorisation application of Pfizer, Serum Institute of India (SII) that is to manufacture the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, and Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin.

India will also extend the dry run of vaccination drive against the coronavirus disease to the rest of the country on Saturday after Assam, Andhra Pradesh, Punjab and Gujarat. All state capitals will conduct dry runs in at least three session sites and some will also include districts that are situated in difficult terrain or have poor logistical support.