New Delhi: Maharashtra minister Nawab Malik on Sunday announced that the state will vaccinate its residents for free. This comes as India continues to report more than 3 lakh Covid cases for fourth day in a row. The country logged a total of 3,49,691 Covid cases and 2,767 deaths in the last 24 hours, a new single-day high since the pandemic began last year, according to the health ministry’s data released on Sunday. The active cases in India stood at 26,82,751 on Sunday, while the total Covid-19 cases registered so far reached 1,69,60,172.
Maharashtra’s Covid-19 death toll, however, fell on Saturday even as the state’s case tally zoomed past the 42 lakh-mark, with an increase in the number of active cases. A day after reporting a record 773 deaths, the state’s fatalities fell to its second highest peak of 676 on Saturday, taking its overall toll to 63,928, the worst in the country. The state had reported a single-day tally of 67,160 fresh infections, taking its overall figures past the 42 lakh-mark to 42,28,836.
Meanwhile, the situation in Mumbai improved considerably with a drop in new infections from 7,199 on Friday to 5,867 on Saturday, taking its Covid tally to 6,22,146 till date, 20 days after touching the highest daily spike of 11,206 cases on April 4.