India on Wednesday registered 18,833 fresh Covid cases, which is marginally higher than yesterday’s figure when the country reported the lowest single-day rise in Covid cases (18,346) since early March,  and 278 deaths in the last 24 hours, the Union Health Ministry said.

A total of 24,770 patients also recovered in the last 24 hours, taking the cumulative tally of recoveries to 3,31,75,656. India’s recovery rate stands at 97.94 percent – the highest since March 2020.

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The active caseload is presently 2,46,687, which is the lowest in 203 days. Active cases presently constitute 0.73 percent of the country’s total cases.

Meanwhile, the fresh deaths have taken a toll to 4,49,538, as per the Health Ministry data.

The weekly positivity rate, at 1.68 percent, remains less than 3 percent for the last 103 days now, while the daily positivity rate is 1.34 percent, having remained below 3 percent for the last 37 days and below 5 percent for 120 consecutive days now.

According to the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), the total number of samples tested up to 5 October is 57,68,03,867 including 14,09,825 samples tested yesterday.

With 59,48,360 vaccine doses administered in the last 24 hours, India’s Covid-19 vaccination coverage crossed the 92 crore mark as per provisional reports till 7 a.m. on Wednesday. This has been achieved through 89,35,354 sessions.

Over 92.57 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 6.93 cr unutilized vaccine doses are still available with the states/UTs to be administered, the health ministry data said.

Meanwhile,  Covaxin, India’s indigenously developed coronavirus vaccine, may be cleared by the World Health Organisation as early as next week when the UN agency and an independent group of experts meet.

This comes almost a week after WHO delayed the emergency use authorization (EUA) for Covaxin as the global body sent more technical queries to its manufacturer, Bharat Biotech.

The WHO also warned against misinformation on Covid on Tuesday saying  “We’re not out of the woods” in the fight against the pandemic, even if many people thought it was nearly over.

Maria Van Kerkhove, the technical lead for WHO’s Covid-19, said last week 3.1 million known new cases were reported to the UN health agency, and 54,000 more deaths — though the true numbers would be much higher.

(With IANS inputs)