Coronavirus Highlights: India reported 54,000 coronavirus cases in the last 24 hours, taking the total number of cases to 17,50,723. With this, India crossed a grim milestone of 17 lakh coronavirus in 185 days. The country also witnessed 853 COVID-19 related deaths in the last 24 hours, the Union Health Ministry said.
The total fatalities due to the virus now stand at 37,364. The country's Covid tally had crossed the 16 lakh-mark on Friday, just three days after crossing the 15 lakh infections. More than 11.45 lakh patients have recovered; the recovery rate stood at 65.43 per cent on Saturday.
India has tested a total of 1,98,21,831 samples so far. The positivity rate - percentage of patients who have tested positive for coronavirus - stood at 11.81 per cent.
Meanwhile, India cannot count on herd immunity to stop the coronavirus pandemic given its demography and scale, the Health Ministry said on Thursday, adding that the country will have to rely on a vaccine to fully beat COVID-19. Israel and India are conducting trials on a large sample of patients for four different kinds of technologies that have the potential to detect COVID-19 in about 30 seconds, including a breath analyser and a voice test, according to the Israeli government.