As the country is witnessing an upward surge in COVID infections, the daily infection tally surpassed the 8,000 mark on Saturday.
India reported 8,329 new COVID cases in the last 24 hours, which is 745 more infections than yesterday, according to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.
With this surge, the active COVID caseload in the country stands at 40,370, constituting 0.09 per cent of the country's total positive cases.
With 3,44,994 tests conducted in the last 24 hours, the daily positivity rate was observed to be 2.41 per cent. The weekly positivity rate was recorded to be 1.75 per cent.
According to the health ministry, 4,216 COVID patients recovered in the last 24 hours taking the total number of recoveries from the disease since the onset of the pandemic to 4,26,48,308. The recovery rate stands at 98.69 per cent.
The country has administered more than 194.92 crore (1,94,92,71,111) vaccine doses so far under the nationwide vaccination drive. This has been achieved through 2,49,83,454 sessions.
India has also administered 3,84,33,658 precaution doses to all the beneficiaries so far.
COVID-19 vaccination for the age group 12-14 years began on March 16, 2022. So far, more than 3.50 crore (3,50,34,278) adolescents have been administered the first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine.
Following a surge in COVID cases across the country, the Union Health Ministry is closely monitoring the situation in the states like Maharashtra, Kerala, Delhi and Karnataka and has asked them to follow the five-fold strategy and amp-up testing, said official sources on Thursday.
The Ministry has also asked the States to monitor clusters of new COVID cases and follow COVID-appropriate behavior, sources told ANI.
Recently, Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan wrote to the officials of five states, Kerala, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Telangana, and Tamil Nadu to closely monitor emerging clusters, and maintain an adequate number of testing and send samples from infected individuals for genome sequencing.
( With inputs from ANI )
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