India reports dip in fresh COVID cases, total vaccination now at 168.47 crore

India added 1,49,394 new COVID-19 cases, 13% lower than Thursday. This takes the total tally of the country to 4,19,52,712, while the number of active cases has further declined to 14,35,569, as per the Union Health Ministry data updated on Friday.

In the last 24 hours, there have been 1,072 fresh fatalities, bringing the total death toll to 5,00,055. The active cases comprise 3.42% of the total number of infections. Meanwhile, the national recovery rate for COVID-19 infections has improved significantly, to 95.39%, as per the data updated by the ministry.

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Further, within a span of 24 hours, there has been a reduction of 98,352 cases, recorded in the active COVID caseload. Currently, the daily positivity rate is at 9.27%. 

Medical experts believe that India has seen the worst of the third COVID-19 wave, driven largely due to the omicron variant. Though genome sequencing was not possible for all collected samples, professionals blamed the spike in cases on this highly infectious variant. However, compared to the Delta variant, there weren’t as many fatalities, and symptoms were less severe too. This is due to a successful vaccination program, organized at central and state levels. At present, 168.47 crore people have been successfully vaccinated in India.

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Research has shown that the third wave predominantly affected a younger population, among whom a surprisingly large section had co-morbidity issues. 

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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 crores on May 4 and three crores on June 23.

[Edited with PTI inputs]