India on Tuesday recorded 67,597 new coronavirus cases, taking the overall infection count to 4,23,39,611 since the pandemic began in January 2020. The number of new cases was 19.4% fewer than Monday’s count 83,876 Covid-19 cases.

The toll climbed to 5,04,062 after 1,188 people died of the disease in the last 24 hours. This includes 733 backlog deaths that Kerala added to its toll on Monday.

The daily positivity rate dropped to 5.02% from Monday’s 7.25%, government data showed. The country’s active caseload stood at 9,94,891 and 4,08,40,658 patients have recovered from the infection so far.

Source: Ministry of Health and Family Welfare

As many as 1,70,21,72,615 vaccine doses have been administered in the country till now. Of this, 55,78,297 shots were administered in the past 24 hours.

Meanwhile, the Supreme Court has decided to resume physical hearings for two days in a week from February 14, reported Live Law. On October 7, the court had decided that all the matters listed on Wednesdays and Thursdays would be heard only in the physical presence of the counsels in courtrooms.

However, as Covid-19 cases had surged, the court had reverted to virtual hearings on January 7.

On Monday, the Supreme Court told the government to not insist on asking people to produce Aadhaar card as a proof to get vaccinated, ANI reported. This was after the Centre told the court that the identification card is not mandatory to get inoculated.

Globally, the coronavirus has infected 39.71 crore people and caused 57.49 lakh deaths, data on the Johns Hopkins University showed.