India witnessed a marginal rise in its fresh cases of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19), as 16,326 people tested positive for the viral illness, taking the cumulative Covid-19 infection tally to 34,159,562, the Union ministry of health and family welfare (MoHFW) data showed on Saturday. Daily fatalities, however, witnessed a massive jump, rising to 666 from 231 a day ago, taking the total death count to 453,708, or 1.33 per cent of the total cases, the data showed.
This huge jump in deaths is due to Kerala adding 563 fatalities to its overall toll: 99 from Friday along with 464 from the backlog, a bulletin from the state health department showed. The state also saw 9361 fresh infections.
Meanwhile, Saturday’s Union health ministry bulletin also showed that 17,677 patients were cured from the disease, taking the number of such cases to 33,532,126, accounting for 98.16 per cent of the national caseload. The number of active patients, meanwhile, declined further to 173,728, dropping by 2017 cases, and comprise 0.51 per cent of the cumulative tally.
On the vaccination front, as many as 6,848,417 doses were administered, with the total number of jabs administered till now rising to more than 1.01 billion. On Thursday, the country crossed the milestone of 1 billion or 100 crore doses, reaching the mark a little over nine months after the nationwide inoculation drive commenced on January 16.
These latest numbers come at a time when restrictions across the country have been eased as the number of daily cases continue to be low. On Friday, cinema halls, auditoriums, theatres and multiplexes opened across Maharashtra, albeit at a maximum seating capacity of 50 per cent.
