Marginal increase in number of Covid-19 cases takes India’s tally to 8,553,657

India’s coronavirus disease (Covid-19) tally reached 8,553,657 on Monday after 45,903 new cases were recorded, according to Union health ministry.

The country recorded 490 new fatalities, which took the death toll to 1,26,611.

Monday’s caseload ( a count of the number of Covid-19 cases in the last 24 hours) is marginally up from yesterday’s 45,674 infections.

The case fatality rate stands at 1.48 per cent.The number of active cases of Covid-19 remained below 6 lakh for the 11th consecutive day on Monday.

The number of active cases dropped to 5,09,673 which comprises about six per cent of the total caseload, according to health ministry data.

India’s Covid-19 tally had crossed the 20-lakh mark on August 7, 30 lakh on August 23 and 40 lakh on September 5. It went past 50 lakh on September 16, 60 lakh on September 28, 70 lakh on October 11 and crossed 80 lakh on October 29.

According to Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), a cumulative total of 11,77,36,791 samples have been tested up to November 7 with 11,94,487 samples being tested on Saturday.

Meanwhile, India’s cumulative Covid-19 positivity rate - the number of samples that tests positive out of the total number of samples tested for a disease - is steadily declining, according to the government.

The government data shows that in past three weeks, the positivity rate has come down to 7.23% on November 8 from 7.94% on October 19.