The country had seen a declining graph in the last five days from April 14 to April 18 when 11,109 and 7,633 cases were reported respectively. India recorded 9,111 on 17 April, 10,093 on 16 April and 10,753 on 15 April.
According to the Union Health Ministry, active cases in the country increased to 63,562 from 61,233 yesterday.
8,175 Covid patients have recovered from the disease in the last 24 hours, taking the total number of recoveries to 4,42,50,649.
The recovery rate is 98.67 percent.
The daily case positivity rate increased from 3.62 per cent on Tuesday to 4.39 per cent today, while the weekly positivity rate increased from 5.04 yesterday to 5.14 today.
A total of 220.66 crore Covid vaccine doses have been given so far in the country.
“Of the total 92.46 crore tests conducted so far, 2,40,014 tests were conducted in the last 24 hours,” the ministry said.
Meanwhile, medical experts have warned that the new XBB1.16 variant is capable of evading people’s immune systems and the coming four weeks are crucial.
former director of AIIMSDelhi, Dr. Randeep Guleria has said that while the country was witnessing a fresh spurt in Covid-19 infections, the situation is not such to cause panic.
Guleria told ANI, “Covid-19 cases are increasing across the country. But most of the infections are mild. The hospitalization rate has also not increased. It is not a panic-like situation yet.”