India logs 14,623 fresh Covid cases, 12% higher than yesterday

New Delhi, Oct 20: India reported 14,623 fresh coronavirus infections, taking the total tally of COVID-19 cases to 3,41,08,996, according to the Union Health Ministry data updated on Wednesday.

The death toll climbed to 4,52,651 with 197 fresh fatalities, while the active cases declined to 1,78,098, according to the data updated at 8 am.

The daily rise in new coronavirus infections has been below 30,000 for 26 straight days and less than 50,000 daily new cases have been reported for 115 consecutive days now.

Of the 14,623 new infections and 197 deaths reported in India in the last 24 hours, Kerala reported 7,643 new cases and 77 deaths.

The active cases comprise less than one per cent of the total infections, while the national COVID-19 recovery rate was recorded at 98.15 per cent, the highest since March 2020, the ministry said.

The daily positivity rate was recorded at 1.10 per cent. The weekly positivity rate was also recorded at 1.46 per cent. It has been below three per cent for the last 117 days, according to the ministry.

The number of people who have recuperated from the disease surged to 3,34,78,247.

The cumulative doses administered in the country so far under the nationwide COVID-19 vaccination drive has reached 99,12,82,283.

India's COVID-19 tally had crossed the 20-lakh mark on August 7, 2020, 30 lakh on August 23, 40 lakh on September 5 and 50 lakh on September 16. It went past 60 lakh on September 28, 70 lakh on October 11, crossed 80 lakh on October 29, 90 lakh on November 20 and surpassed the one-crore mark on December 19.

India crossed the grim milestone of two crore on May 4 and three crore on June 23.

India's R Value increases

India's R-value, which reflects how rapidly the coronavirus pandemic is spreading, has remained below 1 since September.

The Reproduction number or R refers to how many people an infected person infects on an average. In other words, it tells how 'efficiently' a virus is spreading.Kolkata has an R-value over 1, perhaps "unsurprising" given the mass gatherings during the (recently-concluded) Durga Puja, said Sitabhra Sinha, who is leading the research.

Bengaluru also has R-value over 1 - it has been so ever since mid-September - while the R-values of Chennai, Pune and Mumbai are just below 1.

The country's R-value, calculated between September 25 and October 18, was 0.90.

Between August 30 and September 3, the value was 1.11. It started declining since then - the R-value was 0.94 between September 4 and 7, 0.86 between September 11 and 15, 0.92 between September 14 and 19 and 0.87 between September 17 and 21, as per the study.