India recorded a huge jump in the daily Covid deaths (666) today as Kerala revised its data with 291 more deaths added to the state’s overall count. So far, 4,53,708 people have died of Covid in India.

The daily rise in new coronavirus infections has been below 30,000 for 29 straight days and less than 50,000 daily new cases have been reported for 118 consecutive days now.

As many as 68.48 Lakh vaccines were administered in the past 24 hours, taking the vaccine count to 101.30 crore doses.

The active cases decreased to 1,73,728 comprising 0.51 per cent of the total infections, the lowest since March 2020, while the national COVID-19 recovery rate was recorded at 98.16 per cent, the highest since March 2020, the health ministry said.

A decrease of 2,017 cases has been recorded in the total active number of COVID-19 cases in a span of 24 hours.

As many as 13,64,681 tests were conducted on Friday, taking the total cumulative tests conducted so far for detection of COVID-19 in the country to 59,84,31,162.

On Friday, India saw a single-day rise of 15,786 new COVID-19 cases, taking the tally to 3,41,43,236, while the active cases have declined to 1,75,745, the lowest in 232 days, according to the Union health ministry’s data updated on Friday.

On Friday, one of the worst hit state, Maharashtra – reopened cinema halls, theatres and auditoriums with 50 per cent seating capacity as COVID-19 cases are going down in the state.

India completed the milestone of achieving 1 billion Covid vaccine doses on Thursday. Prime Minister Modi, addressing the nation a day after, said that it was “not just a number” but the symbol of the country’s ability and of “new India”. India’s critics had been silenced, PM said, tacking the vaccination record onto Diwali cheer and a sense of optimism across sectors.

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.