India witnessed a sharp spike in its daily Covid-19 infections on Saturday with 22,775 new cases reported from across the country on the first day of the new year.
This is an increase of over 6,000 cases from the 16,764 reported on Friday. The rise in infections came amid widespread curbs announced by many state governments to check new year celebrations.
406 more people lost their lives to the illness in the last 24 hours, taking the death toll to 481,486, data from the Union ministry of health and family welfare showed.
The active caseload, which has been on the rise since the past few days, breached the 100,000-mark and stood at 104,781.
the number of cases pertaining to the Omicron variant (B.1.1.529) also increased and was recorded at 1,431, according to the ministry.
Maharashtra and Delhi, with 454 and 351 cases respectively, added the most to the national tally. Of the total cases 488 people have recovered and been discharged, the ministry noted.
As many as 8,949 people across the country recovered from Covid-19 in the last 24 hours taking the total recoveries to 34,275,312 with an overall recovery rate of 98.32%.
The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) said that 1,110,855 samples were tested for the disease on Friday and so far 678,989,110 tests have been conducted.
On the vaccination front, more than 1.45 billion doses have been administered so far.
Source: Hindustan Times