COVID-19 cases: Decline trend maintained as India records 2.08 lakh new COVID-19 cases in last 24 hours

New Delhi, May 26: Union health ministry on Wednesday said that India recorded 2.08 lakh fresh COVID-19 cases, maintaining the ongoing declining trend, though the 24-hour tally registers a slight increase from the number of cases reported on Tuesday. With this, the total tally reaches 2,71,57795, with a daily positivity rate of 9.42 per cent.

According to the health ministry, India's daily recoveries continue to outnumber the daily new cases for the 13th consecutive day on Wednesday, as 2,95,955 recoveries were registered in the last 24 hours. With recoveries surpassing new cases, the number of India's active cases has reduced to 24,95,591, a decline of 91,191 cases in 24 hours.

On Tuesday, India's daily case dropped below two lakh after 40 days as 1,96,427 fresh infections were reported. On April 14, when the second wave of the pandemic was at its peak, the country crossed the landmark of 2 lakh cases.

Since then, the number of daily cases has been on a steady increase and on April 30, the country became the first in the world to report over 4 lakh infections in 24 hours.

Amid visible signs of the peak of the second wave receding, the Centre has asked states and Union territories to ramp up vaccination as the Centre has provided them with stocks till June 15.

The need for containment measures in rural, peri-urban and tribal areas, areas which remained unaffected during the first wave but could not resist the second one, has also been stressed.