India reports 913 fresh COVID cases, lowest in 715 days

India recorded less than 1,000 new COVID-19 cases for the first time in 715 days even as the virus tally rose to 4,30,29,044, while the active infection count fell below 13,000, according to the Union Health Ministry data updated on Monday.

The number of active cases is the lowest in 714 days, the data showed.

Thirteen new fatalities pushed the death toll from the pandemic to 5,21,358, the data updated at 8 am stated.

Also Read:Amid global COVID surge, WHO warns against treating omicron like the flu

The active case count comprises 0.03% of the total infections, while the national COVID-19 recovery rate remained at 98.76%, the ministry said.

India recorded COVID-19 cases below 1,000 for the first time since April 18, 2020 when 991 cases were reported.

A reduction of 416 cases has been recorded in the number of active infections in a span of 24 hours.

India’s COVID-19 tally had surpassed the one-crore mark on December 19, 2020. The country crossed the grim milestone of two crore coronavirus cases on May 4 and three crore on June 23 last year.

Also Read: COVID deaths jump by 40%, but cases falling globally: WHO

The daily positivity rate was recorded at 0.29% and the weekly positivity rate at 0.22%, according to the Health Ministry.

A total of 79.10 crore tests for the detection of COVID-19 have been conducted so far, including 3,14,823 in the last 24 hours.

Meanwhile, a new variant of the coronavirus was confirmed by the World Health Organization earlier this week. The new strain of COVID-19 was found in United Kingdom.

XE is a “recombinant” strain resulting from a mutation of the BA.1 and BA.2 Omicron strains. When a patient is infected with numerous COVID variants, recombinant mutations occur. The variants mix up their genetic material during replication, resulting in a new mutation, according to UK experts in a paper published in the British Medical Journal.