Covid-19 update: India reports over 12k new cases, 167 deaths

New Delhi: In a major development, India recorded 12,584 new cases of coronavirus in the last 24 hours on Tuesday, which is country's lowest single-day figure in over seven months. With the new addition, India's overall tally to 1,04,79,179. Prior to this, the lowest number was recorded on June 17 last year, when the country had logged in 12,881 fresh Covid cases in a day.

Meanwhile, the country reported 167 deaths in the past 24 hours, taking the overall fatality toll of the country to 1,51,327, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare said.  It is the second consecutive day when the country had reported below 200 deaths in a single day. Since the last 18 days, less than 300 new deaths per day have been recorded across the country. According to the Ministry, till now, 1,01,11,294 people have recovered. Currently, there are 2,16,558 active cases in the country.  The recovery rate stands at 96.43 per cent while the fatality rate is 1.44 as per cent.

The total number of samples tested up to January 11 were 18,26,52,887 including 8,97,056 samples tested on Monday:  Indian Council of Medical Research said.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday chaired a meeting with the chief ministers of all states to review the preparedness ahead of India's covid-19 vaccination drive which is scheduled to commence from January 16, with approval of two vaccines.

"The Centre will bear all the costs for the first phase of vaccination" of health workers and frontline workers like the police, civil defence and sanitation workers, PM Modi said in his address. 

"If you look at the number of health and frontline workers across all states, it stands at around 3 crore. It has been decided that state governments will not have to bear the expenses of vaccination of these 3 crore people in the first phase. The government of India will bear these expenses," PM Modi said.