India on Saturday morning recorded a jump in deaths due to the coronavirus disease as Kerala revised its official toll.

The country reported 666 deaths overnight, taking the total count to 4,53,708 since the pandemic began in January last year. This was a sharp rise from the 231 deaths reported on Friday.

The nationwide tally of infections has reached 3,41,59,562 with 16,326 new cases in the last 24 hours. The new cases were 3.42% higher than Friday’s count of 15,786 infections.

On Friday, Kerala added 563 deaths to its list of official fatalities, The Hindu reported. This includes 99 deaths which occurred on Friday.

The state government claimed that 292 of these deaths were not counted due to incomplete documentation. The deaths occurred before June this year, when districts started started directly uploading their fatality count online.

The deaths of remaining 172 people were added after their relatives filed appeals following the Centre’s new guidelines for issuing certificates for Covid-19 deaths.

The most such fatalities (289) were reported from the Thiruvananthapuram district, The New Indian Express reported. Deaths were also added in the districts of Ernakulam (45) , Kannur (36), Thrissur (36) and Palakkad (30).

The state health department’s Covid death information portal, on which families can file appeals, has received 12,144 applications till now.

The official cumulative fatality in the state now stands at 27,765.

Meanwhile, the Union health ministry said that India’s active case load currently stands at 1,73,728, which is the lowest in 233 days. Active cases presently constitute 0.51% of the total case load.

A total of 68,48,417 vaccine doses were administered in the country in the past day. A total of 1,01,30,28,411 vaccine doses have been administered till now since the beginning of the inoculation drive in January.

World updates

  • British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Friday that a new coronavirus-induced lockdown was not on the cards, Reuters reported. He made the statement even as Covid-19 infections increased by 17.9% in the past seven days compared to the previous week.
  • United States federal health regulators said on Friday that the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine’s doses for children appeared highly effective in preventing symptomatic infections and caused no unexpected safety concerns, AP reported. The country’s Food and Drug Administration will now ask external vaccine experts to vote on whether the shots can be administered to children between 5 and 11 years of age.
  • Globally, the coronavirus has infected more than 24.29 crore people and caused more than 49.37 lakh deaths since the pandemic broke out in December 2019, according to Johns Hopkins University.