India‘s daily Covid tally on Friday, July 15,  remained above the 20,000-mark for a second consecutive day as 20,038 cases were reported in the last 24 hours, which pushed the overall cases to 4,37,10,027, according to the health ministry dashboard. The active cases have climbed to 1,39,073 and constitute 0.31 per cent of the caseload. Forty-seven more patients died and nearly 17,000 (16,994) recuperated from Covid in the last 24 hours, pushing the overall count of deaths and recoveries to 5,25,604 and 4,30,45,350 respectively. On Thursday, the country had reported 20,139 cases, 38 deaths and 16,482 recoveries. And on Wednesday, 16,906 people tested positive for Covid while 45 died and 15,447 recuperated. The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) said on Friday that more than 4.50 lakh samples were tested for Covid in the last 24 hours, and the total number of samples tested is now over 86.86 crore. According to the Union health ministry, the daily and weekly Covid positivity rate stands at 4.44% and 4.30% respectively.

India’s overall vaccination coverage has exceeded 199.47 crore with over 18.9 lakh doses administered to eligible beneficiaries in the last 24 hours. Of the total vaccinations, over 5.26 crore precautionary doses have been administered so far.  From Friday, July 15, the Centre started with the Covid Vaccination Amrit Mahotsava to provide free precautionary doses for all adult-eligible population at government vaccination centres for a period of 75 days.             Source: HT