India on Wednesday morning recorded 1,61,386 new coronavirus cases, pushing the infection tally in the country to 4,16,30,885 since the pandemic began in January 2020. The number of cases is 3.39% fewer than Tuesday’s tally of 1,67,059 infections.

With 1,733 deaths, the toll climbed to 4,97,975 on Wednesday. The toll includes 1,063 backlog deaths that Kerala added to its tally of fatalities on Tuesday, data from the Union health ministry showed.

The daily positivity rate dropped to 9.26% from 11.69% on Tuesday. There are 16,21,603 active case and 3,95,11,307 patients have so far recovered from the infection.

(Source: Ministry of Health and Family Welfare)

On Tuesday, the World Health Organization said a subvariant of the Omicron strain has been detected in 57 countries, reported AFP.

The global health body said that subvariants of Omicron, BA.1 and BA.1.1, which were the first versions to be identified, still account for over 96% of all the Omicron sequences uploaded to the GISAID, a global database that provides open-access to genomic data of influenza viruses and the coronavirus disease.

However, WHO added that there has been a clear rise in cases involving BA.2, the new subvariant of Omicron.

Meanwhile, the Maharashtra government has relaxed Covid-19 restrictions in Mumbai after the city recorded less than a thousand cases on Monday, reported India Today.

Night curfew in the city has been lifted, according to the new guidelines. Restaurants and theatres have also been permitted to function based on their usual timings, but with 50% capacity. Beaches, gardens and parks will remain open as per normal schedule.

Globally, the coronavirus disease has infected over 38.13 crore people and caused 56.85 lakh deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins University.