Active Covid cases in country below one lakh after a year and a half

New Delhi: India added 8,954 new coronavirus infections taking the total tally of Covid cases to 3,45,96,776, while the active cases were recorded at less than a lakh after 547 days, according to the Union Health Ministry data updated on Wednesday.

The death toll climbed to 4,69,247 with 267 fresh fatalities, according to the data updated at 8 am.

The daily rise in new coronavirus infections has been below 20,000 for 54 straight days and less than 50,000 daily new cases have been reported for 156 consecutive days now.

The active cases declined to 99,023 comprising 0.29 per cent of the total infections, the lowest since March 2020, while the national Covid recovery rate has improved to 98.36 per cent, the highest since March 2020, the ministry said.

A decrease of 1,520 cases has been recorded in the active Covid caseload in a span of 24 hours.

The 267 new fatalities include 177 from Kerala and 35 from Maharashtra.

Of the 177 deaths in Kerala, 19 were reported over the last few days and 158 were designated as Covid deaths after receiving appeals based on the new guidelines of the Centre and the directions of the Supreme Court, a Kerala state government release said on Tuesday.

A total of 4,69,247 deaths have been reported so far in the country including 1,40,997 from Maharashtra, 40,132 from Kerala, 38,211 from Karnataka, 36,481 from Tamil Nadu, 25,098 from Delhi, 22,911 from Uttar Pradesh and 19,486 from West Bengal.