India records over 20,000 COVID-19 cases for 4th day

NEW DELHI -- India recorded over 20,000 new cases of COVID-19 for the fourth straight day on Sunday, officials said.

The health ministry's data showed that 20,528 cases of COVID-19 were reported during the past 24 hours, taking the total tally to 43,750,599 in the country.

India's active caseload increased to 143,449. The country also logged 49 COVID-19-related deaths during this period, pushing the overall death toll to 525,709 since the beginning of the pandemic, the ministry said.

The daily positivity rate stands at 5.23 percent and the weekly positivity rate was 4.55 percent, the ministry data showed.

The ministry said so far 43,081,441 people have been successfully cured and discharged from hospitals, of whom 17,790 were discharged during the past 24 hours.

The cumulative COVID-19 vaccination coverage in the country is inching closer to 2 billion doses as 1,999,889,097 doses have been administered until Sunday morning, the ministry said.

The detection of a more contagious Omicron mutant, BA.2.75, which is gaining ground in India, has worried health officials. They feared that the new mutant may be able to spread rapidly and get around immunity from vaccines and previous infections.

The Indian government has focused on promoting booster doses as the uptake for the third dose has been low. The drive to provide free booster doses of the COVID-19 vaccine to all adults at government centers began on Friday.