India on Friday registered 12,729 new cases in the past 24 hours, taking the overall tally of infections to 34,333,754 since the pandemic began in January last year. The number of new cases was 1.21% lower than Thursday’s count of 12,885 cases.

The nationwide toll increased by 221 to 4,59,873.

The country presently has 1,48,922 active cases, and the number of active infections increased by 343 in the past day.

The nationwide recovery rate is 98.23%, and it is currently the highest since March 2020.

A total of 5,65,276 people were administered coronavirus vaccines in the past day, and in all, 1,07,70,46,116 doses have been administered in the country since the vaccination drive began on January 16.

Other updates

  • Schools in Karnataka will reopen from the lower kindergarten and upper kindergarten classes from November 8 in all taluks where the test positivity is below 2%, The Times of India reported. With this, schools will reopen for all classes for the first time since March 2020.
  • From April 19 last year to November 3, the Delhi Police issued 3,14,977 challans for violations of coronavirus-related norms, PTI reported. Most of these – 2,78,505 – were issued to people for not wearing masks.
  • Mumbai’s civic body, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation, will call up about 3 lakh people who took their first dose in the city but did not turn up for their second dose, The Times of India reported. The civic body’s ward-level war rooms will make the calls to check if they took the second dose.

Global updates

  • Coronavirus hospitalisations in Belgium on Thursday increased to levels that had led to a lockdown in October 2020, Reuters reported. The country reported an average of 6,728 cases in the past 14 days. In the last seven days, an average of 164 patients were admitted to hospitals every day, constituting an increase of 36% from the previous week.
  • The coronavirus has infected over 24.85 crore people across the world and caused more than 50.29 lakh deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins University.