Coronavirus: India clocks 8,954 new COVID-19 cases; active cases less than 1 lakh in 547 days

India added 8,954 new coronavirus infections on Wednesday, as the country witnessed a slight uptick in the daily infection tally, taking the 3,45,96,776, according to the Union Health Ministry data. With 267 fresh fatalities, the death toll climbed to 4,69,247 according to the data updated on Wednesday. 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 declined to 99,023 with a decrease of 1,520 cases in a span of 24 hours. The active caseload fell below the 100,000-mark after 547 days, the Union Health Ministry said. Active cases account for less than 1% of total cases, currently at 0.29%, lowest since March 2020. The daily recoveries continued to remain higher than daily infections. A total of 10,207 people were discharged from hospitals during the last 24 hours as the total recoveries reached 34,028,506 with a recovery rate of 98.36%, the highest since March 2020.

According to the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) data, as many as 1,108,467 samples were tested for the disease in the last 24 hours. So far, 642,412,315 tests have been conducted in the country. Meanwhile, over 124.10 crore vaccine doses have been administered so far under the nationwide vaccination drive.