India on Saturday reported 19,740 new Covid cases and 248 deaths in the last 24 hours, the Union Health Ministry said. The recovery of 23,070 patients in the last 24 hours has increased the cumulative tally of recovered patients to 3,32,48,291.

Consequently, India’s recovery rate stands at 97.98 per cent, the highest since March 2020. The active caseload is presently at 2,36,643, which is the lowest in 206 days. Active cases presently constitute 0.70 per cent of the country’s total positive cases.

Meanwhile, the fresh deaths have taken the toll to 4,50,375, as per the Health Ministry data.

The weekly positivity rate, at 1.62 per cent, remains less than 3 per cent for the last 106 days now, while the daily positivity rate is 1.56 per cent, having remained below 3 per cent for the last 40 days and below 5 per cent for 123 consecutive days now.

The last 24 hours saw a total of 12,69,291 tests being conducted, taking the cumulative total to over 58 crore tests.

With 79,12,202 vaccine doses administered in the last 24 hours, India’s Covid-19 vaccination coverage nears 94 crore mark as per provisional report till 7 a.m. on Saturday. This has been achieved through 91,40,316 sessions.

Over 95.51 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 8.51 cr unutilized vaccine doses are still available with the states/UTs to be administered, the Health Ministry data said.

The ministry said that the Central Government is committed to accelerating the pace and expanding the scope of Covid-19 vaccination throughout the country.

The new phase of universalization of the Covid-19 vaccination commenced on June 21. The vaccination drive has been ramped up through the availability of more vaccines, advanced visibility of vaccine availability to States and UTs for enabling better planning by them and streamlining the vaccine supply chain.

Two Indian drugmakers have requested permission to end late-stage trials of their generic versions of Merck & Co’s oral antiviral drug molnupiravir for moderate Covid-19, raising questions about how effective the experimental medicine is for that group of patients.

(With IANS inputs)