India recorded 20,021 new cases of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) in the last 24 hours, according to Union health ministry update on Monday morning. This took the nationwide tally to 10,207,871.
The trend of falling active cases of the disease continued with the number further coming down to 2,77,301. The number of patients discharged from hospitals between Sunday and Monday stood at 97,82,669, according to health ministry update.
The country recorded 279 fresh fatalities in the said period, which took the nationwide death toll to 1,47,901.
According to health ministry update on Sunday, India recorded the lowest single-day rise in Covid-19 cases in nearly six months at 18,732. The active caseload also dipped to 2.78 lakh, the lowest after 170 days, the health ministry said.
Meanwhile, the health authorities are set to hold a two-day dry run from Monday in four states for its proposed ambitious vaccination drive likely to be kicked off in January. The states where this drive will be held are Punjab, Assam, Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat.
The exercise will include necessary data entry in Co-WIN, an online platform for monitoring of vaccine delivery, testing receipt and allocation, deployment of team members, mock drill of session sites with test beneficiaries, the Union Health Ministry had said.
As part of the strategy that has been put in place to detect and contain the mutant variant detected in the UK, five per cent of the positive cases of Covid-19 from all states and union territories will be tested for Whole Genome Sequencing (WGS), the health ministry had said on Saturday after a meeting of the National Task Force (NTF) on Covid-19 on the issue.