At 259,000, India records lowest daily cases in a month

Only 24 hours after recording less than 4,000 deaths, India on Friday once again breached the grim milestone as daily fatalities due to Covid-19 rose to 4,209, according to the country’s Union Health and Family Welfare Ministry, even as new cases dropped to its lowest at 259,551 in exactly a month.

India registered record deaths due to Covid on Wednesday with 4,529 deaths—the highest number of fatalities from Covid infection in any country so far. It surpassed 4,468 deaths in the US on 12 January, and earlier 4,211 in Brazil on 6 April. These three are the worst-hit by the pandemic.

Fresh Covid cases came down below the 300,000-mark for the first time on 17 May after touching record high of 414,188 on 7 May.

India’s overall tally of Covid-19 cases now stands at 26,031,991 with 3,027,925 active cases and 291,331 deaths so far.

According to the Health Ministry, a total of 357,295 people have been discharged in the last 24 hours, with 22,712,735 being cured from Covid till date.

The Health Ministry said that a total of 191,879,503 people have been vaccinated so far in the country, including 1,482,754 who were administered vaccines in the last 24 hours.

According to the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), 324,417,870 samples have been tested up to 20 May for Covid-19. Of these 2,061,683 samples were tested on Thursday.