New Delhi: India has reported 8,439 new Covid-19 cases, and 195 deaths in the last 24 hours. India's active caseload currently stands at 93,733, which is the lowest in 555 days.


Also, the active cases currently account for 0.27 percent of total cases, which is the lowest since March 2020. The death toll is 4,73,952. As many as 9,525 recoveries were recorded in the last 24 hours, which increases the number of total recoveries to 3,40,89,137, the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare said in a statement.


Also, the recovery rate stands at 98.36 percent, which is the highest since the onset of the pandemic. 129.54 crore vaccine doses have been administered so far under the Nationwide Vaccination Drive.






The daily positivity rate has been less than two percent for the last 65 days.


On Monday, two cases of Omicron, the new Covid-19 variant, were reported in Mumbai, which takes India’s total tally of the new variant to 23, as per reports. The first two cases were reported in Karnataka. This was followed by one case in Gujarat, and another in Maharashtra. Seven cases of the Omicron variant were reported in Maharashtra’s Pune district on Sunday, six of whom belonged to the same family.


Top US scientist Anthony Fauci has said that early indicators suggest Omicron is not worse than the previous strains of the virus, and possibly milder, according to reports.


Dr Soumya Swaminathan, the World Health Organization's second-in-command, said that while a lot remained to be learned about the new, heavily mutated variant of Covid-19, preliminary data indicated it did not make people sicker than Delta and other strains, AFP reported.


A top WHO official said on Tuesday that Omicron does not appear to cause more severe disease than other variants, and is "highly unlikely" to fully dodge vaccine protections, AFP reported.


The research head of a laboratory at the Africa Health Research Institute in South Africa said on Tuesday that the Omicron variant of the coronavirus can partially evade the protection from two doses of Pfizer Inc and partner BioNTech's COVID-19 vaccine, as per reports.


On November 26, 2021, WHO named the B.1.1.529 Omicron and classified it as a Variant of Concern (VOC).