India today recorded 10,158 news Covid cases cases, 30 per cent more than yesterday. The active cases in the country have now gone up to 44,998, according to data by the Union health ministry.
The infection count reported today - a sharp jump from yesterday when 7,830 cases were reported - has taken the total number of Covid cases reported in the country to 4,42,10,127.
The daily positivity rate was recorded at 4.42 per cent while the weekly positivity rate was 4.02 per cent. The active cases now constitute 0.10 per cent of the total infections.
The nationwide COVID-19 recovery rate has been recorded at 98.71 per cent,according to the health ministry website. The case fatality rate was recorded at 1.19 per cent.
Government sources yesterday said that Covid has entered the endemic stage in India and cases will rise for the next 10-12 days, after which the infections will subside. In the endemic stage, an infection is restricted to a particular region whereas in pandemic, the infection spreads to a bigger area or even worldwide.
The XBB.1.16 subvariant of Omicron, which is driving the latest surge, is not a cause of worry and vaccines are effective against it, health ministry officials said.
The subvariant's prevalence increased from 21.6% in February to 35.8% in March, but no incident of hospitalisation or death has been reported, the sources said.