India logs 313 new Covid cases, active caseload now 2,041

New Delhi, Jan 20 (PTI) India saw a single-day rise of 313 new Covid cases, while the active caseload has declined to 2,041, the health ministry said on Saturday.

Three deaths — two from Karnataka and one from Maharashtra — were reported in the last 24 hours, according to data updated by the ministry at 8 am.

The number of active Covid cases in the country stood at 2,331 on Friday, according to the ministry’s website.

The number of daily cases of Covid had dropped to double digits till December 5, but it began to rise after the emergence of a new variant and cold weather conditions.

After December 5, the highest single-day rise of 841 new cases was reported on December 31, 2023, which is 0.2 per cent of the peak cases reported in May 2021, official sources said.

Of the total active cases, a large majority of these (around 92 per cent) are recovering under home isolation.

“The currently available data suggests that the JN.1 variant is neither leading to an exponential rise in the new cases nor a surge in the hospitalisation and mortality,” the official source stated.

India has witnessed three waves of Covid in the past with the peak incidence of daily new cases and deaths being reported during the delta wave in April-June 2021.

At its peak, 414,188 new cases and 3915 deaths were reported on May 7, 2021.

Since the pandemic began in early 2020, there have been more than 4.5 crore people getting infected and over 5.3 lakh deaths in about four years since then across the country.

The number of people who have recuperated from the disease stands at over 4.4 crore with a national recovery rate of 98.81 per cent, according to the ministry’s website.

According to the website, 220.67 crore doses of Covid vaccines have so far been administered in the country.