Covid update: India records lowest fatalities in 35 days, over 1.34 lakh new cases 24 hours

A slight uptick in the new reported coronavirus infections was seen in the last 24 hours with 1,34,154 more people testing positive, the Union health ministry said on Thursday.

The number stood at 1,32,788. With the addition of new cases, the cumulative load in the country has reached 2,84,41,986.

The fatalities recorded in the last 24 hours dipped to a nearly 35-day low with 2,887 more people succumbing to the disease. With this, the death toll in the country has reached 3,37,989.

Further, the recoveries continue to outnumber the newly reported infections by a huge margin as 2,11,499 were discharged between Wednesday and Thursday. The total number of recoveries has now reached 2,63,90,584 and the recovery rate stands at 92.48%.

As a result, the active tally in India has reached 17,13,413, depleting by 80,232 in the last 24 hours.

Tests conducted so far

India has tested 35,37,82,648 samples for Covid-19 until now, according to the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR).

Out of these, 21,59,873 samples were tested on Wednesday.

Vaccination in India

The country has so far administered 22,10,43,693 anti-Covid jabs. As many as 24,26,265 doses out of the total were given in the last 24 hours.

While the central government has asserted that all eligible person will be able to get vaccinated by the year-end, analysis has shown that India's inoculation drive will need to be accelerated sixfold to achieve the target.

The goal translates into 36,00,000 doses a month from now on—as against 58 million given in May.

The pace of vaccination has, however, dropped by 34% in May from April because of a supply crunch, and experts said achieving the full vaccination target even with the expected increase in the supply of jabs later this year appears unrealistic.

At the end of April, India was on course to complete its vaccination process by 2023-end, but at the current monthly pace, the goalpost may have moved by a year.