India reports 8,954 new Covid-19 cases, slightly higher than yesterday

New Delhi, Dec 01: India registered 8,954 new Covid-19 cases in the last 24 hours, 28 per cent higher than yesterday, according to the Union Health Ministry data released on Wednesday. The total caseload now stands at 3,45,96,776.

The death toll climbed to 4,69,247 with 267 fresh fatalities, according to the data updated at 8 am.

The daily rise in new coronavirus infections has been below 20,000 for 54 straight days and less than 50,000 daily new cases have been reported for 156 consecutive days now.

The active cases stood at 99,023 or 0.29% of the total cases, the lowest since March 2020.

A total of 10,207 recoveries were reported throughout the country. With this, the national recovery rate currently stands at 98.36 per cent, which is the highest since March 2020.

The daily positivity rate was recorded at 0.69 per cent. It has been less than 2 per cent for last 57 days.

The weekly positivity rate was also recorded at 0.84 per cent. It has been below 1 per cent for the last 16 days, according to the health ministry.

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.