India on Tuesday witnessed a major slump in Covid-19 infections in the past 24 hours, the cases have dipped below 20,000 for the first time since March 11 to touch 18,795. The related deaths are down to 179, as against 276 a day earlier, which is the smallest count of deaths since mid-March.
The number of daily fatalities was recorded at 154 on March 19.
The tally has dropped sharply by 27.8% since Monday when 26,041 cases were registered. The active caseload at 2.92 lakh is at a low of 192 days. Kerala, which led the states in daily Covid cases, saw a sharp drop with 11,699 cases in a day and 58 deaths. Maharashtra came second with 32 deaths.
With 1,657 cases, Tamil Nadu is the second southern state after Kerala with a high daily caseload. It also reported 19 deaths. Uttar Pradesh, the most populous state, reported six Covid cases, while neighbouring Delhi, the national capital, reported 32 cases. Both states reported zero Covid deaths.
Rajasthan, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Delhi, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Uttarakhand have reported zero Covid-19 deaths in the past 24 hours.
The number of active cases has declined to 2,92,206, accounting for 0.87% of the total number of cases -- the lowest since March 2020 -- while the national COVID-19 recovery rate was recorded at 97.81%, the highest since March last year, the health ministry said.
The daily positivity rate was recorded at 1.42%, which is less than 3% for the last 29 days whereas the weekly positivity rate dropped to 1.88%, which is below 3% for the last 95 days.
