COVID-19: India records 2,796 deaths as Bihar reconciles data

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India saw a single-day rise of 2,796 fatalities with Bihar carrying out a reconciliation exercise of its Covid data, pushing the country’s death toll to 4,73,326, while 8,895 new infections were reported, according to Union health ministry data updated on Sunday.

India’s total tally of COVID-19 cases has increased to 3,46,33,255, the data updated at 8 am showed.

India had recorded a single-day rise of 3,998 fatalities on July 21 after Maharashtra carried out the 14th reconciliation exercise of its Covid data.

As for a high 2,796 fatalities, the Union health ministry said, 2,426 reconciled deaths by Bihar were adjusted in Sunday’s data. Kerala also cleared a backlog of 263 deaths. Hence, the nation’s death tally is showing a spike.

The daily rise in new coronavirus infections has remained below 50,000 for 161 consecutive days now.

The active cases stand at 99,155, comprising 0.29 per cent of the total infections, the lowest since March 2020. The national COVID-19 recovery rate was recorded at 98.35 per cent, the health ministry said.

A decrease of 819 cases has been recorded in the active COVID-19 caseload in a span of 24 hours, it said.

The daily positivity rate was recorded at 0.73 per cent. It has been less than 2 per cent for the last 62 days.

The weekly positivity rate was recorded at 0.80 per cent. It has remained below 1 per cent for the last 21 days, according to the health ministry.

The number of people who have recuperated from the disease has surged to 3,40,60,774 while the case fatality rate has increased to 1.37 per cent.

The cumulative COVID-19 vaccine doses administered in the country so far has exceeded 127.61 crore.

India’s COVID-19 tally had crossed the 20-lakh mark on August 7, 2020, 30 lakh on August 23, 40 lakh on September 5 and 50 lakh on September 16. It went past 60 lakh on September 28, 70 lakh on October 11, crossed 80 lakh on October 29, 90 lakh on November 20 and surpassed the one-crore mark on December 19.

India crossed the grim milestone of two crore COVID-19 cases on May 4 this year and three crore on June 23.

The 2,796 new fatalities include 2,426 from Bihar, 315 from Kerala and 14 from Maharashtra.

Kerala has been reconciling deaths for the past few days, hence the death tally of the state is high.

The total 4,73,326 deaths reported in the country include 1,41,163 from Maharashtra, 41,439 from Kerala, 38,224 from Karnataka, 36,519 from Tamil Nadu, 25,098 from Delhi, 22,911 from Uttar Pradesh and 19,534 from West Bengal.

The health ministry stressed that more than 70 per cent of the deaths occurred due to comorbidities.

“Our figures are being reconciled with the Indian Council of Medical Research,” the ministry said on its website, adding that state-wise distribution of figures is subject to further verification and reconciliation.