India reports 8,954 new Covid-19 cases, active cases below 100,000-mark after 547 days

The active caseload fell below the 100,000-mark after 547 days, the Union health ministry said. It declined by 1,520 cases and stood at 99,023.

With 8,954 new Covid-19 cases reported across the country on Wednesday, India witnessed a slight uptick in the daily infection tally, a day after it reported 6,990 cases on Tuesday. 

1,108,467 samples were tested for Covid-19 on Wednesday, the ICMR said.(Bloomberg)

As many as 267 people lost their lives to the viral infection in the past 24 hours, which is also higher than the 190 casualties reported on Tuesday. The total confirmed infections reached 34,596,776 while the death toll stood at 469,247.

The active caseload fell below the 100,000-mark after 547 days, the Union health ministry said. 

It declined by 1,520 cases and stood at 99,023, the data showed. “Active cases account for less than 1% of total cases, currently at 0.29%; Lowest since March 2020,” the ministry said in a statement.

The daily recoveries continued to remain higher than daily infections. Data updated on Wednesday showed 10,207 people were discharged from hospitals during the previous 24 hours as the total recoveries reached 34,028,506 with a recovery rate of 98.36%, the highest since March 2020, the ministry said.

Medical workers in the country tested 1,108,467 samples for the disease in the last 24 hours as the cumulative number of samples tested reached  642,412,315, the Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR) said. 

As far as vaccinations are concerned, the cumulative number of doses administered under the country’s vaccination drive exceeded the 1.24 billion-mark. 

“With the administration of 80,98,716vaccine doses in the last 24 hours, India’s COVID-19 vaccination coverage has exceeded 124.10 Cr (1,24,10,86,850) as per provisional reports till 7 am today,” the ministry said in a statement. 

Also, more than 241 million vaccine doses are remaining unutilised with states and Union territories.

The Union government’s new guidelines governing the arrival of international passengers in the country, in light of the new Omicron variant, came into effect on the day. 

The Centre has also asked states and UTs to enhance testing against the disease and strengthen their testing infrastructure to better monitor the transmission of the new variant in the country. 

Union health minister Mansukh Mandaviya on Tuesday informed the Rajya Sabha that no cases of the new variant was detected in India as of November 30.