New Delhi (NVI): India has scaled another peak today as the cumulative test for COVID-19 has surpassed 18 crore-mark, Union Health Ministry said.
A total of 9,16,951 tests were conducted in the last 24 hours, pushing the total number to 18,02,53,315.
“Progressive countrywide expansion in testing infrastructure has played a crucial role in the steep rise of India’s testing numbers” the Health Ministry said in a statement.
Further, the daily testing capacity has got a substantial boost, with 2,316 testing laboratories in the country including 1201 government labs and 1,115 private labs.
“High level of comprehensive testing on a sustained basis has also resulted in bringing down the national positivity rate,” the ministry said. The national cumulative positivity rate is 5.79 per cent today, which has reduced from 8.93 per cent to 5.79 per cent in a span of five months, it said.
Around 15 States and Union Territories have positivity rate less than the national average. Bihar has the lowest Positivity Rate with 1.44 per cent.
At prersent, the country’s tests per million (TPM) stand at 130618.3. With the increase in testing infrastructure, the TPM has also increased exponentially.
The ministry also said, as many as 22 States and UTs have better tests per million population than the national average. “Out of total, 13 States and UTs have lower tests per million population compared to the national figure, indicting the need for higher testing in these regions,” it added.
In the last 24 hours, India registered 19,253 new recoveries which has led to a further contraction of the active caseload. India’s active COVID-19 caseload of 2,24,190 consists of just 2.15 per of total positive cases and total recovered cases stands at 10,056,651.
Meanwhile, the recovery rate has improved to 96.41 per cent. The gap between recovered cases and active cases is steadily increasing and presently stands at 9,832,461.
Furthermore, 78.89 per cent of the new recovered cases is contributed by ten States and UTs, the statement said.
“Out of these, Kerala saw 5,324 persons recovering from COVID-19. Maharashtra and West Bengal reported 2,890 and 1,136 new recoveries, respectively,” it added.
-RJV