India on Thursday recorded India records 81,466 COVID-19 cases in last 24 hours, the Union Health Ministry’s data released on Friday showed. 469 deaths were recorded in the past 24 hours, bringing the death toll to reach 163,396.

There are 614,696 active virus cases, while 1,15,25,039 have recovered. A total of 245,912,587 samples have been tested for the novel coronavirus, including 11,13,966 samples tested on Thursday, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) said.

India on Thursday started the third phase of the COVID-19 vaccination drive for 65 lakh people aged above 45. Over 3.6 lakh healthcare and frontline workers were inoculated against the virus after the vaccination drive began on January 16.  A senior government official told PTI, “In the third phase, people aged 45 and above as of January 1, 2022 are eligible for vaccination, irrespective of their comorbidity status.”

According to ANI, the government said that vaccinations will be done on all days of April, including gazetted holidays at all public and private COVID-19 vaccination centres.