A single-day rise of 48,698 COVID-19 infections took India's case tally to 3,01,83,143 while the weekly positivity rate declined to 2.97 per cent, according to Union Health Ministry data on Saturday.
The death count climbed to 3,94,493 with 1,183 more people succumbing to the viral disease in a day.
The number of active cases has further declined to 5,95,565 and now accounts for 1.97 per cent of the total infections, the data updated at 8 am showed.
Recoveries outnumbered daily new cases of COVID-19 for the 44th consecutive day with the number of people who have recuperated from the disease surging to 2,91,93,085. The case fatality rate stood at 1.31 per cent.
While the national COVID-19 recovery rate has improved to 96.72 per cent, the weekly case positivity rate has come down to 2.97 per cent.
Meanwhile, rich countries are opening up societies and vaccinating young people who are not at great risk from COVID-19, while the poorest countries cruelly lack doses, the World Health Organization said on Friday, condemning a global failure.
The situation in Africa, where new infections and deaths jumped by nearly 40% last week compared to the previous week, is "so dangerous" as the Delta variant spreads globally, WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.
"Our world is failing, as the global community we are failing," he told a news conference.
