New Delhi (TIP): India on Friday, Dec 10,  saw a reduction in its daily tally of coronavirus disease (Covid-19) after 8,503 new infections were recorded in the last 24 hours, taking the caseload to 34,674,744, according to the Union ministry of health and family welfare.

There were 9,419 cases of Covid-19 on Thursday.

However, active cases of Covid-19 saw a slight increase in the last 24 hours and now stand at 94,943 but are the lowest since March last year, according to the ministry.

As many as 7,678 patients recovered from Covid-19 in the last 24 hours and the total count of recoveries has climbed to 34,105,066, the updated data showed. The overall Covid-19 recovery rate is at 98.36 per cent, the Union health ministry also said on Friday. The country recorded 624 deaths due to Covid-19 in the same period. Of these, 225 deaths are from Kerala, which continues to remain one of the worst-hit states by the coronavirus pandemic.

According to the state health department’s release, the 225 fatalities in Kerala include 52 deaths which were recorded in the last 24 hours, and the remaining 173 were designated as deaths due to coronavirus disease after receiving appeals based on the new guidelines of the Centre and the directions of the Supreme Court.

The southern state, for the past few weeks, has been adding a backlog of Covid-19 related deaths to the country’s total fatality count. The overall cases in Kerala are at 5,171,232 including 42,239 deaths, 40,546 active cases and nearly 5.1 million discharges. The Union health ministry said on Friday India’s vaccination coverage has exceeded 1.31 billion with over 7.45 million doses administered to those eligible in the last 24 hours. Of the total doses, as many as 809,809,983 people have received the first dose and the remaining 502,077,274 are fully vaccinated against Covid-19. Cases of the Omicron variant of the coronavirus in India have dropped to 14 from 23 after nine patients from Rajasthan’s Jaipur tested negative for Covid-19 on Thursday.