Covid update: India reports 636 new cases, 3 deaths in last 24 hours; nearly 4,400 active cases – Business Today

On Sunday, India reported the highest number of COVID cases in a day in the past 227 days or over seven months.

The Union Health Ministry on Monday said that India has reported 636 new COVID-19 cases, bringing the total active cases to 4,394. In the last 24 hours, three new fatalities - two from Kerala and one from Tamil Nadu - have been recorded.

On Sunday, India reported the highest number of COVID cases in a day in the past 227 days or over seven months.

Daily case numbers, which had dropped to double digits until December 5, have risen again following the emergence of a new variant and cold weather conditions. India reported a total of 145 cases of COVID-19 subvariant JN.1 till December 28.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) classified JN.1 as a variant of interest and as distinct from its parent lineage, BA.2.86.

At the height of the pandemic, daily figures were in lakhs. Since the pandemic's onset in early 2020, over 4.5 crore people have been infected and more than 5.3 lakh lives have been lostnationwide.

On Sunday, Maharashtra recorded 131 fresh COVID-19 cases after testing 12,405 samples at a positivity rate of 1.05 per cent, the state health department said. No fatalities are reported.

A day earlier, the state had logged 172 COVID-19 infections.

Out of 8,76,33,748 laboratory samples tested until Sunday (since the beginning of the pandemic in March 2020), 81,72,836 have tested positive for COVID-19, as per the health department.

Maharashtra has so far reported 29 cases of JN.1 sub-variant of Omicron till Sunday. District-wise distribution is Pune 15, Thane 5, Beed 3, Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar 2 and one each in Kolhapur, Akola, Sindhudurg and Nashik.

Maharashtra has seen 137 COVID-19 fatalities since January 1, 2023. While 70.80 per cent of these deaths have occurred in individuals above 60 years of age, 84 per cent of the deceased had comorbidities, and 16 per cent didn't have any comorbidity.

On the other hand, Kerala reported 2,282 new COVID cases during last week, marking a 24% decrease from the week before when the tally of reported cases was 3,018. This suggests that the surge may have already peaked after lasting for around four weeks.

While Karnataka recorded 922 new COVID cases, alomost a three-fold jump from the 309 cases reported from the week earlier.

The other states where JN.1 cases have been detected are -- 36 in Gujarat, four each in Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu, two from Telangana and one from Delhi.

Also read:WHO warns of co-circulation of influenza and SARS-CoV-2 viruses. Should India worry?

Also read:Was SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19 engineered as a bio weapon? Here's what Indian scientists say

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Covid update: India reports 636 new cases, 3 deaths in last 24 hours; nearly 4,400 active cases - Business Today