India on Sunday recorded 1,761 new coronavirus cases, pushing the infection tally since the pandemic broke out to 4,30,07,841. Sunday’s case count is the lowest in 688 days, reported PTI.

With 127 deaths, the toll climbed to 5,16,479. The toll includes 106 backlog deaths that Kerala added to its fatality count on Saturday.

The number of actives cases dropped by 1,562 to 26,240 in the last 24 hours. So far, 4,24,65,122 patients have recovered from Covid-19.

The daily positivity rate dropped to 0.41% on Sunday, down from Saturday’s 0.56%, government data showed.

(Source: Ministry of Health and Family Welfare)

India’s Sunday tally was recorded at a time when the coronavirus disease is resurging in South East Asia and other parts of the globe.

On Wednesday, the World Health Organization had said that the rise in coronavirus cases in some countries could be the “tip of the iceberg”, warning that the pandemic is not over.

The number of new coronavirus infections jumped by 8% last week globally, as 1.1 crore new cases and over 43,000 deaths were recorded between March 7 and March 13. It is the first weekly rise in cases since the end of January.

The biggest rise in cases was recorded in the World Health Organization’s western Pacific region, which includes South Korea and China, where cases increased by 25% and deaths by 27% between March 7 and March 13.

At least 10 cities and counties in China have been locked down because of the latest surge in the Covid-19 cases driven by the Omicron variant of the virus. On Saturday, China had reported two deaths, the first fatalities due to the disease in the country since January 2021.

The global health agency had reiterated its stance that the pandemic is not over on Saturday and said that misinformation about Covid-19 were allowing the virus to thrive, reported NDTV.

“We have huge amounts of misinformation that’s out there,” said WHO’s Covid-19 Technical Lead Maria Van Kerkhove. “The misinformation that Omicron is mild. Misinformation that the pandemic is over. Misinformation that this is the last variant that we will have to deal with. This is really causing a lot of confusion.”

Globally, the coronavirus has so far infected 46.97 crore people and caused 60.74 lakh deaths since the pandemic began in January 2020, according to the data provided by the John Hopkins University.

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