India records 38,949 fresh Covid cases; 542 fatalities in last 24 hours

India recorded 38,949 new COVID-19 cases, which took the infection tally to 3,10,26,829, while the death toll reached 4,12,531 with 542 more fatalities, according to Union health ministry data updated on Friday.

The active cases have declined to 4,30,422 and comprise 1.39 per cent of the total infections, while the national COVID-19 recovery rate stands at 97.28 per cent, the data updated at 8 am showed.

It said that a decrease of 1,619 has been recorded in the number of active cases in a span of 24 hours.

The ministry said 19,55,910 tests were conducted on Thursday, taking the total cumulative tests conducted so far for detection of COVID-19 in the country to 44,00,23,239, while the daily positivity rate was recorded at 1.99 per cent.

The positivity rate has been less than three per cent for 25 consecutive days, it said.

The weekly positivity rate stands at 2.14 per cent, according to the health ministry.

The number of people who have recovered from the disease has increased to 3,01,83,876, while the case fatality rate has risen to 1.33 per cent, the data stated.

The vaccine doses administered so far has reached 39.53 crore under the nationwide inoculation drive against COVID-19.

India's COVID-19 tally had crossed the 20 lakh-mark on August 7, 30 lakh on August 23, 40 lakh on September 5 and 50 lakh on September 16 last year.

It went past 60 lakh on September 28, 70 lakh on October 11, crossed 80 lakh on October 29, 90 lakh on November 20 and surpassed the one crore-mark on December 19 last year.

India crossed two crore cases on May 4 and three crore cases on June 23.