E-Paper
India sees 1,225 new Covid cases, marginally lower than yesterday; 28 deaths
Covid-19 cases in India: Nearly 1,600 patients recovered from Covid-19 in the last 24 hours and the total recoveries have climbed to 4,24,89,004.
India continued to see a downward trend in its Covid tally on Thursday as 1,225 fresh cases were reported, the health ministry data showed. Twenty-eight patients died and 1,594 recuperated from the viral disease in the last 24 hours.
With this, the overall cases in the country - since the start of the pandemic - has climbed to 4,30,24,440 including 5,21,129 deaths and 4,24,89,004 recoveries. The active cases have declined to 14,307 and constitute 0.03% of the caseload, the ministry data showed.
On Wednesday, the active cases went below the 15,000-mark at 14,704, for the first time in 23 months. On the other hand, the country reported 1,233 cases, 31 deaths and 1,876 recoveries on the same day. The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) said on Thursday that over six lakh samples were tested for Covid-19 in the last 24 hours and the cumulative figure is nearing 79 crore.
The overall vaccination coverage in the country has exceeded 184 crore with over 22 lakh doses administered to eligible beneficiaries in the last 24 hours, the health ministry also said.
Daily cases have been going down in India since the third wave of the pandemic peaked in January this year.
But there has been a massive surge in cases in Asia and the rest of the world due to the BA.2 sub-variant of Omicron.
According to a report by Reuters on Wednesday, cases in Asia have passed 10 crore and the continent was reporting over 10 lakh new cases about every two days.
Meanwhile, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Wednesday that the pandemic might follow in 2022 -- with a new, more virulent variant in the worst-case scenario.
The WHO added that a more dangerous variant of concern than Omicron could be lurking around the corner. Maria Van Kerkhove, who is the UN health agency's technical lead on Covid-19, had said that the virus has "a lot of energy left", going into the third year of the pandemic.
