India reports 496 COVID-19 deaths, 44,658 fresh cases of infection in last 24 hours

New Delhi, August 27, 2021

India today reported 496 more deaths due to COVID-19 and 44,658 new cases of infection in the last 24 hours.

The country had registered 607 deaths and 46,164 fresh cases of infection yesterday.

Kerala, which has been posting consistently high COVID-19 numbers for the past many weeks, accounted for more than 67 per cent of the new cases registered in the country in the last 24 hours, at 30,077, and 162 of the 496 deaths. The state had reported 31,445 cases and 215 deaths yesterday.

The number of deaths in 24 hours in the country dropped below 500 today again after remaining above that mark for two consecutive days.

The country had reported more than 4,000 deaths a day on 13 days in May at the peak of the second wave of the pandemic.

The number of new cases has now stayed below the 50,000-mark for 59 consecutive days now. It has, however, remained above 40,000 for two days now after remaining below that level for 12 days.

The highest number of new cases in a 24-hour period -- 414,188 -- was reported on May 7.

With the latest data released by the Ministry of Health of Family Welfare (MoHFW) this morning, the death toll so far has climbed to 436,861 today.

The total number of cases of infection till now, since the first cases of COVID-19 were reported in India in late January 2020, rose to 32,603,188 today.

Of the 496 COVID-19 deaths registered in India in the last 24 hours, apart from the 162 deaths in Kerala, there were 159 deaths in Maharashtra, 66 in Odisha, 26 in Tamil Nadu, 25 in Karnataka, 12 in Andhra Pradesh and 11 in Assam.

The other states reported less than 10 deaths each in the last 24 hours.

In national capital Delhi, there were 45 new cases of COVID-19 and no COVID-19 death reported during the last 24 hours.

The number of those who have recovered from COVID-19 in the country rose to 31,821,428 today, up 32,988 from yesterday. The recovery rate fell to 97.60% from 97.63% yesterday.

The number of active cases rose for the third consecutive day today, going up by 11,174 to 344,899 after falling for the previous nine days.

The number of active cases had touched 3,745,237 on May 10, the highest since the pandemic began in India. The active caseload had been continuously rising after February 12 this year, when it had touched its lowest mark of 135,926 in recent months. However, since May 11, there has been a steady downtrend.

The Health Ministry said the total number of COVID-19 vaccine doses administered in the country so far has crossed the 60-crore mark to touch 61.22 crore, including 79,48,439 doses administered in the last 24 hours.

The Weekly Positivity Rate is currently at 2.10% while the Daily Positivity rate was 2.45% today, staying below 3% for the 32nd consecutive day.

NNN