Coronavirus LIVE: 35 states, UTs testing over 140 per mn daily, says govt

Thirty-five states and Union territories in the country are performing more than 140 Covid-19 tests per day per million population, while 22 states and UTs have Covid-19 positivity rate less than the national average, the health ministry said on Thursday.

The cumulative positivity rate stands at 8.19 per cent, it said.

The national average of Covid-19 tests per day per million population is 865, the ministry said, asserting that the country has demonstrated an exponential increase in the Covid-19 testing infrastructure since January 2020.

"As evidence has revealed, higher number of testing on a sustained basis has aided in bringing down the positivity rate. The sharp decline in national cumulative positivity rate has demonstrated that the rate of spread of infection is being contained," the ministry underlined.

Coronavirus update: India on Wednesday registered over 75,000 new Covid-19 cases, taking the tally to 6,835,655and the death toll reached 105,526. According to a World Bank report, more than 150 million people may fall into extreme poverty throughout the world by 2021 as a result of the economic contraction caused by the novel coronavirus pandemic. 
 

Coronavirus vaccine update: The Drug Controller General of India (DCGI) has given its permission for conducting Phase-I human clinical trial for an "antisera" that was developed by injecting inactivated SARS-CoV-2 in horses and can be a potential coronavirus treatment.
 

World coronavirus update: The global tally of coronavirus cases stands at 36,381,183. While 27,402,045 have recovered, 1,059,996 have died so far. The US, the worst-hit country, has 7,776,224 cases. It is followed by India, which has 6,832,988 cases, Brazil (5,002,357) and Russia (1,248,619).
 

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