India records lowest new Covid cases in 18 months

New Delhi, November 24

India added 9,283 new coronavirus infections taking the country's total tally of Covid cases to 3,45,35,763  while the active cases declined to 1,11,481, the lowest in 537 days, according to the Union Health Ministry data updated on Wednesday.

The death toll climbed to 4,66,584 with 437 fresh fatalities, according to the data updated at 8 am.

The daily rise in new coronavirus infections has been below 20,000 for 47 straight days and less than 50,000 daily new cases have been reported for 150 consecutive days now.

The active cases comprise 0.32  per cent of the total infections, the lowest since March 2020, while the national Covid recovery rate was recorded at 98.33 per cent, the highest since March 2020, the ministry said.

A decrease of 2,103 cases has been recorded in the active Covid caseload in a span of 24 hours.

The 437 new fatalities include 370 from Kerala and 19 from Maharashtra.

Of the 370 deaths, 57 were reported over the last few days and 313 were designated as Covid deaths after receiving appeals based on the new guidelines of the Centre and the directions of the Supreme Court, a state government release said on Tuesday.

A total of 4,66,584 deaths have been reported so far in the country, including 1,40,766 from Maharashtra, 38,182 from Karnataka, 38,045 from Kerala, 36,401 from Tamil  Nadu, 25,095 from Delhi, 22,909 from Uttar Pradesh and 19,407 from West Bengal. PTI