India records 13,788 new Covid-19 cases, 145 deaths in 24 hours

India recorded 13,788 new cases of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19), according to Union health ministry update on Monday. With this, the nationwide tally reached 10,571,773.

The number of active cases of the disease came down further to 2,08,012, according to health ministry update at 8 am.

The country also saw 145 fatalities due to the disease in the said period which took the death toll to 1,52,419.

India has been witnessing a fall in the daily as well as weekly fall in the number of Covid-19 cases. In the week ending January 17, the country recorded 107,701 new Covid-19 cases which is down 14.73% from the week before.

In terms of death, the total fatalities in the previous week were 1,275, while the corresponding tally the week before was 1,564, as per the health ministry’s numbers.

Also, the daily caseload has been less than 20,000 for the last 10 days, according to health ministry.

India has launched a massive exercise to inoculate its population against the disease. Union health minister Harsh Vardhan on Sunday informed that over 2.24 lakh people vaccinated against Covid-19 till now. More than 17,000 beneficiaries were vaccinated in six states – the second day of the vaccination drive.

The six states where the vaccination drive was carried out on Sunday are Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Manipur and Tamil Nadu.

The states and union territories have been advised to plan Covid-19 vaccination sessions four days a week to minimise disruption of routine health services.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi had rolled out the world’s largest inoculation drive against Covid-19 on Saturday with two vaccines – Serum Institute’s Covishield and Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin – which were recently approved by India’s drug regulator.

According to the government, the shots will be offered first to an estimated one crore healthcare workers and around two crore frontline workers, and then to persons above 50 years of age, followed by persons younger than 50 years of age with associated comorbidities.