The country also registered 439 deaths and 2,43,495 recoveries in the last 24 hours.
New Delhi: India continued to report over 3 lakh daily Covid-19 cases and recorded 3,06,064 new infections in the last 24 hours, the Union Health Ministry informed on Monday (January 24, 2022) morning.
With this, the country’s active coronavirus caseload has now increased to 22,49,335. India has so far conducted over 71.69 crore Covid-19 tests, of which, 14,74,753 were conducted in the last 24 hours. While the daily positivity rate stands at 20.75%, the weekly positivity rate has increased to 17.03%.
India, the second-worst Covid-hit country in the world, also registered 439 deaths and 2,43,495 recoveries between Sunday and Morning morning.
Meanwhile, 162.26 cr vaccine doses have been administered so far under the nationwide Covid-19 vaccination drive. According to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, more than 13.83 crore balance and unutilized vaccine doses are still available with the States and UTs to be administered.
Omicron variant in community transmission stage in India
The Indian SARS-CoV-2 Genomics Consortium (INSACOG) has said that the Omicron variant of Covid-19 is in the community transmission stage in India. The consortium, in its bulletin released on Sunday, also said that Omicron has become dominant in multiple metros where new cases have been rising exponentially.
The consortium further stated that BA.2 lineage, an infectious sub-variant of Omicron, has been found in a “substantial fraction” in the country. India has so far reported over 10,000 cases of the new Covid-19 variant.
When will third wave of Covid-19 peak in India?
India’s R-value has reduced to 1.57 in the week from January 14-21 and the national peak of the third wave of the infection is expected to come in the next fortnight, according to a preliminary analysis by IIT Madras.
According to Dr Jayant Jha, Assistant Professor, Department of Mathematics, IIT Madras, the coronavirus peak in the country is likely to come in the next 14 days till February 6.
The earlier prediction was that the peak of the third wave is likely between February 1 and February 15.
R-value, notably, indicates the number of people an infected person can spread the disease to and a pandemic is considered to end if this value goes below 1.
According to the analysis shared by IIT Madras, the R-value was recorded at 1.57 between January 14 and January 21 and the number was recorded at 2.2 in the week of January 7-13 while it was 4 from January 1-6 and 2.9 from December 25- 31.
According to the data, the R-value of Mumbai was 0.67, Delhi 0.98, Chennai 1.2 and Kolkata 0.56. The R-value of Mumbai and Kolkata shows that Covid-19 peak is over there and it is becoming endemic while for Delhi and Chennai it is still close to 1.
