India Coronavirus Update: 41,649 new COVID-19 cases in India, nearly 6% lower than yesterday

India Covid-19 Cases: India's test positivity rate remains below the 5 per cent-mark at 2.42 per cent.

New Delhi: India has set a new milestone with over 46 crore people getting themselves vaccinated against coronavirus. The country registered 41,649 lakh fresh cases and 593 deaths. So far, 4.23 lakh people have died of Covid in the country.

Kerala contributed 20,772 cases to the country's daily numbers. More than 37 per cent of India's active cases are in Kerala, according to government sources.
Maharashtra - the worst-hit states with over 62 lakh cases - reported 6,600 new infections. It was followed by Andhra Pradesh with 2,068 cases and Tamil Nadu (1,947 cases).
India has been reporting higher numbers in seven of the past eight days. On Friday, the country reported 44,230 new cases, the most in three weeks. The nationwide tally of infections has reached 3.15 crore, according to health ministry data.
Though the spread of the disease - which had eased off after a peak of four lakh daily cases in May - is largely restricted to a few states, it has renewed fears that a third wave could be imminent.
"The situation in Kerala is absolutely under control," state Health Minister Veena George said on Friday. Ms George said the focus right now is on vaccines, something the state is running out of quickly.
India's test positivity rate (positive cases identified for every 100 tests) remains below the 5 per cent-mark at 2.42 per cent. Over 85% of the districts have been recording less than a 5% test positivity rate.
Active cases have decreased by 3,765 in the last 24 hours to take the tally to 4.08 lakh. Active cases constitute 1.29 per cent of total cases.
About 52 Lakh vaccine doses were administered in the last 24 hours. The rate of vaccination has improved significantly from 2.35 lakh doses per day in January to 39.89 lakh doses per day in June, the government said on Friday.
The Delta variant is more transmissible than the viruses that cause MERS, SARS, Ebola, the common cold, the seasonal flu and smallpox, and it is as contagious as chickenpox, according to a study by US health authority.
The highly transmissible Delta variant, first detected in India, has forced hundreds of thousands of people in China under lockdown as the country battled its worst outbreak in months. Nearly 194 million people are affected by COVID-19 worldwide, according to the World Health Organisation said.