India logs 16,862 new Covid-19 infections in 24 hours; 97.14 crore vaccine doses administered

India is heading towards a massive milestone in its fight against the Covid 19 pandemic, as the country is all set to achieve 100 crore vaccine dose administration soon, said an update from the Ministry of Health and Family welfare on Friday. So far, 97.14 crore vaccine doses have been administered under Nationwide Vaccination Drive, it said.   

Meanwhile, India logged 16,862 new coronavirus infections, taking the total tally of the COVID-19 cases to 3,40,37,592, while the active cases declined to 2,03,678, the lowest in 216 days, according to the same data.

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"The death toll climbed to 4,51,814 with 379 fresh fatalities, according to the data updated at 8 am.

The daily rise in new coronavirus infections has been below 30,000 for 21 straight days and less than 50,000 daily new cases have been reported for 110 consecutive days now," said news agency ANI quoting the government data. 

The active cases comprise 0.60 per cent of the total infections, the lowest since March 2020, while the national COVID-19 recovery rate was recorded at 98.07 per cent, the highest since March 2020, the ministry said.

India's COVID-19 tally had crossed the 20-lakh mark on August 7, 2020, 30 lakh on August 23, 40 lakh on September 5 and 50 lakh on September 16. It went past 60 lakh on September 28, 70 lakh on October 11, crossed 80 lakh on October 29, 90 lakh on November 20 and surpassed the one-crore mark on December 19. India crossed the grim milestone of two crore on May 4 and three crore on June 2.

Meanwhile, the government in a separate statement informed that more than 100 crore (1,00,35,96,665) vaccine doses have been provided to States/UTs so far through Govt of India (free of cost channel) and through direct state procurement category.  

More than 10.53Cr (10,53,11,155) balance and unutilized COVID vaccine doses are still available with the States/UTs to be administered.