Coronavirus updates: India reports less than 1 lakh cases for fourth day; test positivity rate lowest in 80 days

India's fresh cases have continued to show a downward trend and remained below the one lakh mark for the fourth consecutive day on Friday. The country recorded 91,702 new cases during the last 24 hours, said the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare on Friday.

According to the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), as many as 37,42,42,384 samples were tested for so far out of which 20,44,131 samples were tested yesterday. As many as 24,60,85,649 doses of vaccines have been administered across the country so far.

Downward trend continues

With the new cases, the case tally in India reached 2,92,74,823. India has been witnessing a continuous fall in the active caseload and the country's active caseload today stands at 11,21,671 with a net decrease of 46,281 cases in the last 24 hours.

The weekly positivity rate is currently at 5.14 percent while the daily positivity rate stands at 4.49 percent today. It has remained less than 10 percent for 18th consecutive days now. The Union health ministry informed that India's daily recoveries continue to outnumber the daily new cases for the 29th consecutive day.

As many as 1,34,580 recoveries were registered in the last 24 hours. India's cumulative recoveries have reached 2,77,90,073 today. The national recovery rate has grown further to touch 94.93 percent.

With 3,403 new fatalities in the last 24 hours, the COVID death toll in the country mounted to 3,63,079.

Other highlights:

• Only 4 states now have more than 1 lakh active cases. They are: Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, and Kerala. The state of Andhra Pradesh, which had been constantly reporting high numbers, today reported less than one lakh active cases for the first time.
• Six states have more than 50,00o active cases
• Six  states and Union Territories have reported a rise in active cases, namely: Bihar, Meghalaya, Sikkim, Manipur, West Bengal, and Andaman and Nicobar Islands
• The difference between new cases reported in the last week and the preceding seven days is -32 percent (world average is -16 percent)
• India also administered 32.75 lakh vaccine doses in 24 hours, of which 29.55 lakh received their first dose yesterday while 3.2 lakh people got their second dose. This brings the total doses disseminated so far to 24.61 crores.
• 20.44 lakh new tests were conducted in the past 24 hours and the test positivity rate turned out to be 4.49 percent, the lowest in 80 days. It was around 4.69 percent yesterday.
• Some of the states with the highest test positivity rate are: Kerala 13.45 percent, Sikkim 12.64 percent, Goa 12.52 percent. The ones with the lowest Test positivity rate are, Uttar Pradesh 0.20 percent, Delhi 0.41 percent, Bihar 0.52 percent