New Delhi (TIP): With 63,371 fresh cases of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) and 895 related deaths in the past 24 hours, India’s tally went up to 7,370,468, rising by more than 100,000 since the beginning of this month, according to the Union health ministry on Friday, October 16. India has been reporting around 66,000 new Covid-19 cases daily since October 12 and even witnessed 55,342 infections on October 13, official data shows. Deaths have also been fewer with 816 succumbing to the viral disease on October 12 and 680 fatalities on Thursday. The number of deaths have been sustained below the 1,000 mark since the last 17 days.

The health ministry said on Friday that the country continues to have one of the lowest deaths per million population due to the coronavirus disease compared to other countries across the world. It also said that at least 22 states and Union territories have lower deaths per million population than the national average, which is currently at 80. “Some States/UTs are performing better and reporting much lower deaths/million population than the national average,” the ministry posted on Twitter.

There are 804,528 active cases of the coronavirus disease and the death toll in the country, which is the second worst-hit in the world, has gone up to 112,161, the health ministry’s dashboard showed at 8am. There have been 6,453,779 recoveries so far with 70,338 people cured of the respiratory disease in the last 24 hours. This has taken the national recovery rate to 87.56%.

“India is reporting a progressively high increase in the recoveries and a persistent decline in the percentage of active cases. As a result, the doubling time of the infection has sharply improved. It is now almost 73 days (72.8 days). This indicates a substantial fall in the daily New Cases and the consequent increase in time taken to double the Total Cases,” the health ministry said.