India reports 7,584 new COVID cases, 24 deaths in last 24 hrs

India reported 7,584 new COVID cases in the last 24 hours, more than 300 cases than yesterday, according to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare on Friday. The active cases in the country rose to 36,267 which stood at 32,498 yesterday. The active cases are 0.08 per cent of the total caseload in the country.

With 3,35,050 tests conducted in the last 24 hours, the daily positivity rate was observed to be 2.26 per cent. The weekly positivity rate was recorded to be 1.50 per cent. According to the health ministry, 3,791 COVID patients recovered in the last 24 hours taking the total number of recoveries from the disease since the onset of the pandemic to 4,26,44,092. The recovery rate stands at 98.70 per cent.

With the death of 24 COVID patients during this period, the death toll climbed to 5,24,747. Over 194.76 crore vaccine doses have been administered so far under the nationwide vaccination drive.

Following a surge in COVID cases across the country, the Union Health Ministry is closely monitoring the situation in the states like Maharashtra, Kerala, Delhi and Karnataka and has asked them to follow the five-fold strategy and amp-up testing, said official sources on Thursday. The Ministry has also asked the States to monitor clusters of new COVID cases and follow COVID appropriate behaviour, sources told ANI.

Recently, Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan wrote to the officials of five states, Kerala, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Telangana and Tamil Nadu to closely monitor emerging clusters, maintain the adequate number of testing and send samples from infected individuals for genome sequencing.