The daily recoveries have outnumbered the daily new cases for seven days straight

India continues to grapple with the all-pervasive second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic, but crucial numbers have shown a steady improvement over the past several days.

The number of daily new Covid-19 cases has been less than 3 lakhs for four consecutive days; the figure was 2,76,110 in the last 24 hours.

The daily recoveries have outnumbered the daily new cases for seven days straight.

India has also conducted 20.55 lakh (over 2 million) Covid-19 tests over the last 24-hour period, a new record for the country, the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare said on Thursday morning.

This was an improvement over the country's own record of 20.08 lakh tests conducted just the previous day.

According to official data, the daily positivity rate has also been showing a steady decline and it now stands at 13.44%.

With 3,69,077 recoveries being registered in the last 24 hours, India’s cumulative recoveries have reached 2,23,55,440 and the National Recovery Rate has now touched 86.74%.

On another front, India’s total Active Caseload has decreased to 31,29,878 today.

With a net decline of 96,841 witnessed in the last 24 hours, it now stands at 12.14% of the country's total Positive Cases.

What continues to be a matter of concern is the number of deaths being reported due to Covid-19, although this has also come down over the past few days.

The figure was 3,874 during the last 24 hours, down from 4,329 in the 24-hour period preceding Tuesday morning.

The National Mortality Rate now stands at 1.11 %.

The number of fatalities could come down further over the next week or so since there is usually a time lag between the number of daily cases and hospitalizations dropping and the number of daily deaths reducing.

Over 187 million Covid-19 vaccine doses administered

Providing details about the nationwide Covid-19 vaccination drive that was launched on January 16 this year, the health ministry said that the cumulative number of vaccine doses administered in has reached 18.70 crore (187 million).

A total of 18,70,09,792 vaccine doses have been administered through 27,31,435 sessions, as per the provisional report till 7 am on Thursday.

These include 96,85,934 HealthCare Workers or HCWs who have taken the 1st dose and 66,67,394 HCWs who have taken the 2nd dose, 1,46,36,501 FrontLine Workers or FLWs (1st dose).and 82,56,381 FLWs (2nd dose).

There are 70,17,189 beneficiaries under the18-44 age group (1st dose), in addition to 5,83,47,950 (1st dose) and 94,36,168 (2nd dose) beneficiaries aged 45 to 60 years.

The number of beneficiaries over 60 years old are 5,49,36,096 (1st dose) and 1,80,26,179 (2nd dose).