India on Thursday reported 22,431 fresh Covid cases and 318 deaths in the last 24 hours, the Union Health Ministry said,  as the nine-day long festival of Navratri began today.

A total of 24,602 patients recovered in the last 24 hours, taking the cumulative tally of recoveries to 3,32,00,258. India’s recovery rate stands at 97.95 percent – the highest since March 2020.

The active caseload is presently 2,44,198, which is the lowest in 204 days. Active cases presently constitute 0.72 percent of the country’s total positive cases. Meanwhile, the fresh deaths have taken a toll to 4,49,856, as per the Health Ministry data.

The weekly positivity rate, at 1.68 percent, remains less than 3 percent for the last 104 days now, while the daily positivity rate is 1.57 percent, having remained below 3 percent for the last 38 days and below 5 percent for 121 consecutive days now.

The last 24 hours saw a total of 14,31,819 tests being conducted, taking the cumulative total to over 57.86 crores.

With 43,09,525 vaccine doses administered in the last 24 hours, India’s Covid-19 vaccination coverage crossed the 92.63 crore mark as per provisional reports till 7 a.m. on Thursday. This has been achieved through 90,14,182 sessions.

Over 93.94 crore vaccine doses have been provided to states/UTs so far through the Centre as well as the direct state procurement category. However, more than 7.64 cr unutilized vaccine doses are still available with the states/UTs to be administered, the Health Ministry data said.

This year, India saw a detrimental rise in the Covid caseload between April and May when cases skyrocketed to 4 lakh in a day. However, the vaccination drive picked up the pace from June onwards, resulting in slow transmission of the infection.

At the moment, only Kerala accounts for the maximum number of cases in the country. The state on Wednesday reported 12,616 fresh coronavirus cases and 134 deaths. On the other hand, Maharashtra reported 2,876 new coronavirus-positive cases in 24 hours.

According to the union health ministry’s data, Andhra Pradesh (8,754), Assam (4,245), Himachal Pradesh (1,477), Jammu & Kashmir (1,065), Karnataka (11,848), Kerala (1,22,996), Maharashtra (36,767), Manipur (1,777), Odisha (4,591), Meghalaya (1,310), Mizoram (16,075), Tamil Nadu (16,637) and West Bengal ( 7,91) are the states that have more than thousand active cases.

(With IANS inputs)