Desk,08-Jan; India’s single-day cases of coronavirus disease (Covid-19) exceeded the 1.40 lakh-mark on Saturday after yet another massive surge of 1,41, 986 infections were reported. This was the second straight day that the country saw more than 1 lakh Covid-19 cases logged in 24 hours, according to the morning update by the Union ministry of health and family welfare. Saturday’s figures are 21% higher than the day before, thus taking the overall Covid-19 tally of India to 3,53,68,372.The active caseload also saw a massive jump after as many as 100,806 infections were added to the tally in the last 24 hours, the health ministry data showed. With this, the country’s active case count has reached as high as 472,169, which is 1.34% of the total number of cases. Maharashtra, Delhi, West Bengal, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka account for the most number of active cases in the country.The daily positivity rate of India has now reached 9.28%, while the weekly positivity rate stands at 5.66%.New deaths due to Covid-19 continue to see a decline after 285 patients succumbed to the disease, down from Friday’s 302. On Thursday, the country logged as many as 534 fatalities due to the virus.The total number of patients recovered from the virus shot up to 3,44,12,740 after as many as 40,895 of them recuperated in the last 24 hours, according to the health ministry update. This shows that the trend of increasing fresh recoveries in the country remains static, which also provides relief in the grim scenario.This rise in daily infections is being driven by the Omicron variant, which was first discovered in South Africa. Since being detected in India in December last year, cases of the highly transmissible variant have topped 3,000. The Omicron tally of the country rose to 3,071 on Saturday, with Maharashtra and Delhi holding the top slots with 876 and 513 cases, respectively.As many as 90,59,360 Covid-19 vaccine shots were administered to eligible beneficiaries in the last 24 hours, which includes a total of 32,55,915 teenagers as well. With this, India’s cumulative vaccination coverage has surpassed 150.06 crore.(CNS
